"The process takes about 2 hours, or longer if the snow is very deep. The sleigh-pulling team walks around a long oval without guidance while Lennie forks off the hay on to a 1000-foot cow chow line."
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Winter ranching in Bondurant
by Paul Ellwood, Bondurant, Wyoming
January 6, 2006
How do the Bondurant cows and horses get fed in the deep snow with temperatures as low as 46 degrees below zero?
At the Bondurant Dell Fork Ranch (between Pinedale and Jackson Hole in western Wyoming), the cowboy traditions of the western frontier are still alive; no tractors, just big gentle work horses do the heavy pulling.
Perhaps, you’ve noticed (between 10AM and 1PM on the Bondurant Ranch cam) Lennie Campbell hitching his two teams of draft horses to a low slung hay sleigh. Except on very cold days when the motor won’t start, he does cheat a little bit using a snowmobile to get to his corralled horses and hay rig.
Once the snow covers the mountain meadow grass around Thanksgiving, Lennie’s horse-drawn diner must feed 240 cows and 40 horses each day. The process takes about 2 hours, or longer if the snow is very deep. The sleigh-pulling team walks around a long oval without guidance while Lennie forks off the hay on to a 1000-foot cow chow line.
The hay is harvested in July and August using the same horses. Most of it is stored until winter in giant hay stacks or bents which the Campbells believe keeps the organic hay in fresher condition than modern baled hay.
Story by Paul Ellwood. Photos by Barbara Ellwood.
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