Horse herding question

[AJMD429]

Watching "The Broken Trail", and two guys are herding "300-500 head of horses" across the plains.

How is this even possible...??? Wouldn't the horses just scatter whenever they took a notion...???

[Griff]

It's easier than herding cats. As a herd of horses will have a "leader"... That's the only one you have to "herd". The rest will follow the leader.

[M. M. Wright]

"Easier than herding ducks down stairs with a stick".

[M. M. Wright]

"Easier than herding ducks down stairs with a stick".

[earlmck]

Like Griff says, horses are generally a "piece 'o cake" to handle because of the single leader. But I never handled a herd that big: I can certainly visualize some challenges if that group was a mixture of studs and mares of all ages. I think it would work OK while you are moving though because even the horse that thinks she is the leader will follow another horse in the lead (that's a trick the "mustangers" used to get a wild bunch trapped).

The problems I visualize would come when you tried to stop for the night. Might have to keep moving 24/7?

I'm going to have to watch that "Broken Trail" I can see.

[sore shoulder]

It would be a lot of work, but one guy leading the lead horse, and the other encouraging stragglers to stay with the bunch would work. Once the herd is broken in, they are a lot more manageable and easier to keep together, same as cows, except horses are smarter and easier to manage. When you read about the ratio of cows to riders on the Texas cattle drives, they probably weren't that far off from that number, and those were feral longhorns.

[crs]

I can tell you one way NOT to herd horses! On an ATV!
I watched a guy try that a couple of years ago and the horses thought it was a game and ran circles around him.

[JohndeFresno]

I can tell you one way NOT to herd horses! On an ATV!
I watched a guy try that a couple of years ago and the horses thought it was a game and ran circles around him.

[MrMurphy]

There's people that even herd with helicopters..........weirder things have been done.


As others noted, herd animals. No different than a couple sheepdogs and some sheep.

[Captain Quigley]

It has been my experience that herding horses is not all that difficult, being that you have the ability to use a little common (horse) sense.

Now try herding yearling steers and all that common sense goes out the window with the wash!

Some days they are a piece of cake and others, they interpret the cosmic winds as a reason to scatter to the nether regions of the universe just for fun.

I can remember gathering a pasture of 300 yearlings one day on a small ranch just west of Cheyenne. We drove them 10 miles from one side of the pasture to the other. As one cowboy was easing through the bedded heard to open the gate, well those critters just up and exploded and ran all the way back the 10 miles to the other side of the pasture. Well, we had us some fast horses, but we could not turn these youngsters before they reached the far end of the fence line. By then they were so tired, they just laid down for an afternoon nap.

After letting our horses blow for a bit, we had the Dickens of a time getting those youngsters up on their feet for the long march home.

That morning we stepped into the saddle at 4 am for a few hours of work by dawn. Actually we did not get out of the saddle until 9 pm that night.

[piller]

Horses and cattle tend to want to be part of a herd, and that is in our favor when we try to make them go somewhere. If you count on the herd instinct too strongly, you will be in for a shock. Horses and cows have about the attention span of a 3 year old, and they tend to wander or stop, or even run at the worst possible time. Horses and cows are capable of being as stubborn and ornery as any human, and with their weight, are more capable of showing it.

Don't ever get the idea that a cowboy is stupid. If he can keep a herd of horses or cattle bunched, then he is smarter than the collective intelligence of the herd, and that is not easy.