Ranch and cowboy work

Brand

An owner's mark burned into the hide, registered with the state and read left to right, top to bottom, as a small sentence.

Branding iron

The iron that carries one registered brand, heated and applied once. One iron, one mark, and no arguing about what it says.

Broke

Trained, in the ranch sense: a well-broke horse does the job quietly. "Broke" says nothing about how it was taught.

Bronc

An unbroken or habitually bucking horse. From the Spanish bronco, rough, and the root of the rodeo event's name.

Bronc rider

The hand who rides the rough string and starts the young ones. A job description on a ranch long before it was an event at a rodeo.

Buckaroo

A cowboy of the Great Basin tradition, riding in the vaquero style. The word is an English ear's version of vaquero.

Bull

An uncastrated male bovine, kept for breeding and handled with the respect that implies.

Calf

A young bovine of either sex, still with its mother. Branded and worked at the spring works, in its first months.

Cattle drive

Moving cattle from one place to another on horseback, over a day or over months. What the old trail outfits did, and what a ranch still does between pastures.

Cattle guard

A grid set into the road at a fence line that vehicles cross and cattle will not. A gate nobody has to remember to shut.

Cavvy

The same bunch of saddle horses, in the Great Basin word for it. Worn down from the Spanish caballada over a century of saying it fast.

Chuckwagon

The wagon that carried the food and the cook on a working outfit, and the reason a crew could stay out for weeks.

Cold-backed

Said of a horse that humps up or bucks for the first minutes after being saddled and then works normally all day.

Colt starting

The first work that leads to a horse being ridden. The modern word for what used to be called breaking, and a different approach as well as a different word.

Cow

A female bovine that has had a calf. Not the general word for cattle, however commonly it is used as one.

Cow camp

An outlying cabin or camp riders stay at while working country too far from headquarters to ride home from.

Cow horse

A horse that can actually work cattle all day. A description of what it does, not of a class it has been shown in.

Cow sense

A horse's own instinct for reading cattle and getting in front of them. Trainable up to a point and largely bred for.

Critter

Any animal, and in cattle country usually one particular cow — normally the one causing the trouble.

Dogie

An orphaned or poorly grown calf, in the Texas word for it. The one in the trail songs, and pronounced with a long o.

Earmark

A cut in the ear in a shape the outfit uses, readable from further away than a brand and from any angle.

Green-broke

Ridden, and not much more. Steers roughly, stops eventually, and has nothing in the bank when something goes wrong.

Ground-tie

A horse trained to stand still where the reins were dropped, with nothing actually holding it. Handy, and never fool-proof.

Hazing

Riding alongside loose stock to keep them moving in the direction you want. The same word as the steer wrestler's hazer.

Heifer

A young female bovine that has not yet had a calf. She becomes a cow when she does, the way a filly becomes a mare.

Hobbles

Straps joining a horse's front feet so it can graze but not travel far. How horses were kept overnight where there was nothing to tie to.

Leppy

A motherless calf, in Great Basin usage. Fed by hand or grafted onto another cow, and behind the rest of its year group either way.

Locoed

Poisoned by locoweed, which permanently affects the brain, and by extension any animal behaving unpredictably for no reason anyone can see.

Maverick

An unbranded grown animal with no known owner. The word came from a Texas rancher whose cattle went unbranded, and then went into general English.

Night latch

A short strap or loop tied to the saddle for the rider's hand to take hold of. An honest handle instead of grabbing the horn.

Pull leather

To grab the saddle to stay on. Forgivable out on the ranch and disqualifying in a rodeo bronc ride.

Quarter Horse

The American stock breed, named for the quarter-mile sprints it won before there were arenas. The default horse of nearly every western event.

Range

Unfenced or lightly fenced grazing country, often leased public land, where cattle live scattered between gathers.

Remuda

The bunch of saddle horses a ranch keeps for its riders to draw from. Spanish for a relay, which is exactly what it is.

Rodear

A herd of gathered cattle held in the open by riders rather than in a pen, so they can be sorted where they stand. The root of the word rodeo.

Rough string

The horses in the remuda nobody wants — barely broke, or spoiled. One rider usually draws the lot, and gets paid extra for it.

Roundup

Riding the country to bring scattered cattle together into one bunch, which is where almost every other job on a ranch begins.

Running iron

A plain hooked iron used to draw any brand freehand. Legitimate once, and later evidence of cattle theft in more or less every state.

Slick

An animal carrying no brand and no earmark. Whose it is depends entirely on who finds it.

Steer

A castrated male bovine, raised for beef. What gets roped in team roping and wrestled in steer wrestling.

Stock horse

The type built for cattle work — compact, heavy-muscled behind, quick to start and stop. The Quarter Horse is the pattern for it.

String

The particular horses assigned to one cowboy out of the remuda. Nobody else rides another man's string without asking.

Sunfish

A buck where the horse twists its belly towards the sky, first one side then the other. Very hard to sit.

Swap ends

To reverse front and back in one jump, so the horse is facing the other way before the rider has finished going the first way.

Vaquero

The Spanish and Mexican cattle horseman whose gear, language and slow training tradition western riding was built on.

Works

The season of gathering, sorting, branding and doctoring cattle. A ranch's whole year is described by which works is coming.

Wrangler

The hand responsible for the saddle horses — gathering them in the morning, holding them, and knowing where every one of them is.