It’s the Pitts: Which is Which?

I’ve never been a rancher, but I’m proud to say for most of my life I’ve been a cattleman.

How can this be? Because a person who owns a ranch may not own a single ruminant, while a cattleman may have thousands of cattle but may not own one acre of ground.

Someone smarter than me once said the only way to acquire a ranch is through marriage, the womb or the tomb. I struck out on all counts. I think I’m the first in my family to have owned a cow, and yet they were ranchers. 

How can this be? Because my great-grandmother Nora owned a small place where she grew walnuts, and everyone in my family referred to it as “the ranch.” 

In California where I was born, raised and reside, anything on which you can grow a bulb garden or two orange trees is called a ranch, whereas everything in Texas smaller than 30 sections is referred to as “a small little place.”

There are big differences between a rancher and a cattleman. 

A rancher owns heavy equipment, including a road grader, D7 Cat, baler, bagger, Bobcat and a backhoe. The only piece of equipment owned by a cattleman is an old, rusty stock trailer with sketchy wiring.

There may be 1,500 head of cattle on a rancher’s place but not a single quart of milk in the refrigerator. A rancher’s old saddle is sacked and hanging in the barn. His branding irons have been turned into towel hangers. His spurs are now wall hangers, and old saddle blankets are now part of the decor. A purse dog sleeps in the house, is fed three meals a day plus a snack, rides in the cab and yaps out the window. 

A cattleman’s truck also serves as the tack room, and three or four barking cow dogs are in the bed of the truck. They sleep under the front porch and eat once a day. If they get a snack, it’s road kill or something they dug up themselves.

A cattleman eats breakfast at the auction market café with his friends and cow buyers and may not eat again until 10 p.m. A rancher eats three meals a day at home because the nearest restaurant or coffee shop is an hour away.

A cattleman pays real close attention to the weekly auction market report, the price of fed cattle and shows up regularly at the auction market to take the pulse of the livestock industry. A rancher is more apt to keep abreast of the Dow Jones and NASDAQ and doesn’t go to the auction yard even if he sells his calves there.

A cattleman has a good ranch horse he and the banker bought and keeps it in his stock trailer saddled up and ready to go at a moment’s notice. He can be mounted up and on the prowl while the rancher is still dressing his horse. 

Both the rancher and the cattleman’s saddles, bits and spurs may have silver brands on them, but the rancher’s weren’t financed with a home equity loan.

A rancher belongs to his county cattlemen’s organization; the Farm Bureau, R-CALF, USA or the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, serves on the board of the soil conservation district and is on a variety of committees for countless clubs. The only group a cattleman may belong to is Alcoholics Anonymous.

A rancher goes to Arizona for the winter and team ropes every weekend. A cattleman can barely get out to go to a jackpot because in winter the roads are covered with black ice and the snow drifts are six feet tall.

A rancher probably has kids who live far, far away who want nothing to do with ranching. If the rancher does own some cows, they are probably all black, all calve within 60 days, have electronic ear tags, are weaned for 60 days and top the market when they’re sold. A rancher probably keeps some poultry around the place. 

A cattleman doesn’t eat eggs or raise chickens, has ulcers and his bulls run with the cows all year long because he has no other place to put them. 

A rancher has a hired hand, a cattleman has a wife. A rancher pays income tax every year but a cattleman only has this problem one year out of 10.