Tribe Ranch Beef Wrap Up

When I get to visit the Tribe Ranch I always get to feeling good about sharing how important understanding animal behavior is and the influence of that behavior through proper pressure and release of that pressure.

The whole crew has been very interested in going about it to improve the way they interact with all animals and humans while working with animals. There have been lots of moments when things were not perfect and the emotions sometimes get pretty elevated, both positive and negative. The important thing to understand is you need to learn from these situations in how to make them better and if they are negative, try to keep them from happening.

Being the lead in teaching or running a crew with livestock is tricky business. You have to push people, and while learning be willing to let people make mistakes, but still be productive and keep animals and humans safe and improving. I still overstep and sometimes let my emotions get the best of me but I am getting better at controlling my emotions.

I find working livestock with family and/or a crew it will cause you to do and say things you never say anywhere else. I find this a fascinating thing and have seen it all my life all over the world. If you want to be an effective leader, it is so important to communicate before and after and during working stock to keep this in check. If not it will make it very difficult to be effective and not create animosity with working stock and having a crew that works together, rather than fighting stock and fellow workmates.

The definition of Tribe is this:

a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.

This ties in perfectly with working as a group working livestock. The Tribe mentality is a great mindset to make it work.

Some things to think about to improve stockmanship, and “humanship”

These are some clips of the Tribe working as a tribe!

Tribe Ranch Beef: Horseback or on Foot?

I try to get to Tribe Ranch once a month or so to work with them on horsemanship and stockmanship skills. They have gone zero to 60 very quickly and have created a ranch, cowherd and the skills to improve all aspects with great stewardship principles and practices. It’s my job to keep pushing them to get better and I love to challenge Robert and the crew on there skill of horsemanship and stockmanship.

They have gotten real good at putting livestock through the system. We worked the cows and calves through on foot, and the finishing steers horseback. I feel much safer and more effective horseback. The challenge is if you are new to riding horses and working cattle there is to much to think about on both sides to be effective. They are now at the level that they can be effective horseback and working in tight situations that require being in the right place at the right time.

I have video of both for a comparison, and there is lots of things for you to see and think about to see if you agree or disagree. The tub doesn’t work very well the way it’s set up, and it doesn’t work at all if you put to many cattle in it. The back gate on the hydraulic chute is designed so it’s to slow to get an animal stopped easily so they can’t put more than one in the lead up before the chute

I think it would be good to take the tub out and put a bud box in, and put a slide gate in for one animal in behind the chute. By not using the tub gate you can only take three or four animals and get them lined up right to go in. It’s fun and high skill and makes for good stockmanship skill building. There is lots of back and forth because of the small numbers of animals at a time.

I don’t like to,store animals in an alley. I feel it is much less stressful taking cattle out of a pen, but it can be thought getting them out and keeping up with three or four at a time. I really believe alleys, tubs, and boxes are pass throughs rather than storage areas to keep animals flowing and the stress level low.

I hope there’s something of value to you in the videos.

Tribe Ranch Beef Visit

Spending time in Arkansas at what I affectionately call “The Tribe” always gives me lots of opportunities to film things that I think are of value to share ideas on Stockmanship, Horsemanship and lifestyle that improve quality of life and provide thought provoking ideas.

We did lots of livestock work, but also got to do the other side of beef production as they received beef from the processors and we helped sort, count, and then deliver great “Tribe Ranch Beef” to the growing list of customers. It’s fun to see how they are taking the same principles that made the previous business so successful and using them to make a successful ranch to table beef business. It’s all about a great product and customer service. I can teach them a lot about handling livestock, but I get to learn about how to really make a business work.