Out Around the Barn

These days anyone that owns or lives on a farm or ranch know that they need livestock equipment in order to maintain their business.  This includes many things, such as, fences, gates, livestock panels and etc.  Today in this world, in order to keep and protect what is ours, we must keep it fenced in or locked up. 

We cannot return to the olden days when there was  ”open range” to allow our cattle and horses to roam.  Back in the late 1800’s the open range was huge out west.  So many acres of land to allow our herds to eat and grow.  As seen in many movies, such as a John Wayne classic,”Chisum,” you can see the vast land of open range where his horses and cattle roamed loose and the cowboys would ride for miles and for days to round them up for a drive or for whatever they needed to do.  But, as the West became more populated with people looking to make a new start or strike it rich the open range began to disappear.  The larger ranches started putting barbed wire fencing around their lands to keep  the sod busters and small ranchers from settling on their land and using their water.  Many a conflict was started between the settlers and ranchers and the government stepped in and thus the open range  was no longer. 

So today it is just not safe or practical for us to be able to do this.  We  have to use the equipment made available to us to keep and protect what we have.  As shown in the above photos, this is the modern day “open range” of a few of our 2008 calf herd. A beautiful site wouldn’t you say.