What’s the difference?

I was raised on a dairy farm, but my parents also raised beef cattle, so I guess Daddy was a farmer AND a rancher.

Most people think of farmers as those who grow crops, run a dairy, or grow pigs, sheep, chickens, etc.

On the other hand, a cowboy is the guy who raises beef cattle. Well, technically, the cowboy is the hired guy who rides the range. The owner would be a rancher, I guess.

In this day and age, a cowboy might ride a 4-wheeler or use a helicopter to herd cattle just as much — if not more than — a horse.

BUT, the romantic in me says he still needs the horse! lol

Chicken farmer
Pig farmer
Sheep farmer (herder?)
Cowboy and/or Rancher

Weird, huh?

Mix it up. It’s okay to have a “farm” and call it a “ranch”. Dh and I raise beef cattle. He herds cattle with 4-wheelers, hauls them to the stockyard in a cattle trailer, and feeds large round bales of hay with a tractor.

But he rides horses for fun, and looks real hunky in a cowboy hat.

So, give your dairy farmer a horse, a swagger, a cowboy hat, and a drawl, a herd of beef cattle, and somebody to run the dairy side of things, and he’s a COWBOY. But even he could milk the cows if push came to shove.

Why, when I was 10, the whole family went on a day-long fishing trip and I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay home and read. A whole day by myself with nothing to do but read.

Ah. Bliss!

3:30 arrived and they weren’t home, and it was milking time. I had 100 dairy cows penned, the machines up and running and was putting the milker on the first cow when they got there.

Mama and Daddy were so proud.