MovieChat Forums > Cowboy (1958) Discussion > Those poor suffering cattle

Those poor suffering cattle

posted 13 years ago by jdown-1
2 replies | jump to latest

Credit the movie Cowboy with trying to show the western life as it really was, rather than just another shoot 'em up. My only complaint is that they drove those poor cattle over some of the bleakest terrain in the southwest, with scarcely enough grass around to support a prairie dog, let alone cows. And where was the water that cattle need? No streams, ponds, nothing. Wouldn't half the herd have died of starvation or thirst?
Reminds me of the opening scenes in The Searchers. Same thing. Big John's brother (?) has a ranch: cattle & a stock pond, but there isn't a sprig of grass to be seen for miles.

[–] skiddoo 12 years ago

The top priority as often mentioned in the movie was getting the cattle to market while they were still in good shape. That would include making sure they had enough food and water to keep on a reasonable amount of weight. Their route would be along traditional trails where food and water were available. There might not be a lot in the early, southern part of the trip but they couldn't allow the cattle to suffer deprivation for long. And they couldn't let the horses weaken and die along the way.

In the years following the Civil War when wild cattle were plentiful in Texas, they were rounded up and taken to the Dakotas for the prairie grass to fatten for market. It was so profitable that a Scottish corporation got involved and did very well for stockholders back home. You couldn't do that if you delivered half dead animals. Even wild cattle used to surviving on scrub and whatever water they could locate couldn't be treated poorly on a long trip.

One might suggest you shouldn't believe everything you see in the movies. :) Even in a movie about train robbers in southern IN the scenes looked dry and brown rather than lushly green because it was shot in southern CA. But really, there were only so many places with wahd open spaces and no sign of modern technology where movies could be filmed at that time.

[–] Captain_Augustus_McCrae 10 years ago

Not meaning to be nasty, but OP's question is a bit ridiculous. If the cows were going to die of thirst or starvation, why the hell would the owner send them off to die? These cows represent a large cash investment, and as such they are valuable. The loss of a few is to be expected as the price of doing business, but if the owners expected to lose very many, why would he start the drive in the first place? During the years 1866-1880 Roughly 6 million cows were driven North from Texas, both to sell for market, and to stock ranches in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas and elsewhere. The GREAT majority of these animals survived the drive- to imagine otherwise is a bit silly, isn't it?

"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae