THE HERD

Before 1994 when we purchased the ranch they had three horses that were used lightly for work with the cattle. Most of the cattle work was done using vehicles or 4 wheelers. We have worked hard at getting things back to the roots of a working cattle ranch and use horses for everything to do with the livestock. Moving cattle, roping, treating, sorting, cattle driving, branding; you name it we do it all on horse back. We do our best to provide good horses that can do the job and are enjoyable for the hard working cowboys.

Since then much time has been spent building our group of horses, this particular area is Chelsea's passion as she is the horse lover of the family.

Currently we are purchasing all of our horses; most at around the age of three but it can range anywhere from two up to five years if the price is right. We prefer the horses on the younger side as we tend to see more training problems in older horses. The majority of our horses are purchased privately although we have found a few through local auctions.

We currently run about 30 to 35 geldings, most of which are registered Quarter horse or Appendix Quarter horse, a few Appaloosas, paints a Morgan and a few grade horses.

So far we have chosen to use only geldings as it helps to cut down on fighting amongst the horses as they are run in a herd in a very large pasture.

Each morning the horses are jingled in and the cowboy selects his horse for that days work. Depending on the job that day will often dictate which horse the cowboy will choose, some jobs are well suited for the younger horse that need lots of miles and wet saddle blankets and other times experienced horse are used when there's an important job to get done.

In general we look for horses that are a minimum of 15 hands tall; though we prefer them around 15.2hh or taller. We look for good substance, bone and frame, with a solid hoof and weighing at least 1200 pounds when mature is ideal. We often favor the Appendix Quarter horse as the combination of Thoroughbred and Quarter horse often provides a good mix of size and speed and athletic ability with usually a good disposition but enough drive to do a hard days work.

It is really important to have a horse with a sensible head as they often find themselves in compromising situations that could be very dangerous if a horse was to lose its cool. Once a horse has spent a season or two as a ranch gelding they have just about seen and done it all and in general make terrific riding horses for just about anyone.

We try to make it a habit to sell our geldings once they start to hit around 13 years of age, this way we feel they won't break down under the tremendous work load of the daily ranch grind and can go on to make someone a really well broke riding horse. Any of our horses are available for sale for the right price though you'd have to write a pretty big cheque to get some of the cowboys to part with their good ones! See our sale section to see which horses are in fact currently listed for sale.