|
|
|
|
I guess my dad spoiled me growing up, because we always had pretty nice horses to ride; the kind that would watch a cow, that you could get a job done on. My family has had a farming/ranching operation in central Kansas for over a hundred years. We run purebred and commercial cow-calf pairs and we do all our cow work horseback. In the fall we gather pastures, drive pairs home and sort the calves off with horses. In the spring we heel and drag the calves for branding. Most of our pastures are a few miles from the home place and none of them have pens. If we need to catch or doctor something, we do it with horses.
We have pretty much always raised what we ride. We started out with a few nice mares that we raised or purchased and hauled to outside stallions. Over the past several years we have been using our own stallions for breeding. We run the mares on grass down in Kansas. The foals are born out in the open on their own. We run our stallion with the mares on grass for about 45 days. For the rest of the year he is my main saddle horse and is used for ranch work, working colts, ranch ropings, team sortings and ranch rodeos.
We are now raising more horses than we need for the ranch, so we always have some for sale, from weanlings on up through some two to four year olds that we are riding and using on the ranch.
|
|
My brother, Chris, and I both worked on a larger ranch for a few years and got to ride a lot of different horses doctoring pairs out in big pastures. Dad, Chris and I have all ridden in several Ray Hunt, Buck Brannaman and Peter Campbell clinics.
I live in the Fort Calhoun area in Nebraska with my wife Valerie, sons Tyler (8) and Will (5) and twin daughters Caitlyn and Allison (3). Most of the year, we keep the stud up here and always have several head of younger horses up here that I am riding.
My brother, Chris and his family live in Leoti, Ks. He also keeps several head of younger horses there most of the year.
We run all of the mares at the ranch and Dad ends up taking care of the weanlings and yearlings most of the time. We usually have 3-5 head of saddle horses that are solid and in use on the ranch. We also have a good friend that works for a commercial feed yard who rides some of our colts there at the feed yard.
~ Chad
|
|
Chad Conard
Fort Calhoun, NE
(402)468-4948
Terry Conard
Timken, KS
(785)355-2369
Chris Conard
Leoti, KS
(620)375-4522
|
|
|
|
|
|
