Cattle Herding in an Open Range State

Open Range Herding Cattle On the Road

Arizona is an open range state. That’s a good thing. It means that cattle or other livestock have the right of way. If my cows are in your garden, you fence the cows out – I don’t have to fence the cattle in. Makes perfectly good sense to me.

I was driving about 100 head down our county road today to take them to a new waterin’ hole. They were strung out single file and walking nice and easy and all was right with the world. Of course 100 steers single file stretch out quite a ways, and our road is one S turn after another. Bottom line is that I couldn’t see the front steers at all. All of a sudden the line of steers stops. I can’t see what the problem is from the back – but then I heard a rifle – close by. Then another shot and steers scattered like quail. Some ran back up the road – some north, some south – nothing forward. Then another shot and it dawned on me that someone was shooting my cattle. I commence hollering like a banshee and dodging steers – aiming for the sound of a rifle. I rounded the curve full tilt – and there was a fellow – a stranger – shooting his rifle in the air to get the cattle off the road. I guess he couldn’t wait to let the steers go around his truck. Without thinking I gave the man a pretty unladylike speech and started regathering the cattle. He was in a hurry and just was trying to scare the cattle out of the road – which he did quite well. Took me a while to start out again and the steers stayed spooky the whole way. Must have been city folk, always in a hurry to get nowhere!