Is it a farm or a ranch?

Here we have mostly ranches. You may raise hay on your ranch, but if you feed it to dairy cows it is a dairy farm. Feed it to beef cows it is a ranch.

Small cattle growers around here often say "we have a place out South of here where we run some cattle", not claiming the vanity of the word "ranch", because it's only maybe a couple of hundred acres and they have jobs in town, too.

In rural central and northern California, the term "place" is also used by the old timers when the acreage is too small to be a ranch. Though, I think if you have a few hundred acres, or even one hundred acres, you could get away with calling it a ranch. Growing up I heard "ranch" used with all kinds of operations: "almond ranch", "turkey ranch", and of course "cattle ranch". Everyone out west wants their place to be a ranch.

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"... the human mind can never be satisfied never at rest allways on the strech for something new some strange novelty." -- James Clyman, mountain man & guide on the Oregon Trail, 1846

If it is bigger than the King ranch in Texas it is a ranch

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Check it Out O added another Plank With O care
http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist...to-Planks.html

LOL...as a young girl when I first heard about the King ranch I determined that I wanted to marry one of the owners so that I could ride my horse all day and not reach the edge of the property!

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My Grandpa always said he was a farmer because "rancher" sounded to pretentious . He always had beef cattle, but would have never called himself a rancher or cattleman, just a farmer. (we are in NW Ok.)

I was always of the understanding that it was determined by the method in which you harvested your plant crop.
If you used livestock exclusively to harvest the plant crop your operation is a ranch.
If you use manpower and/or machinery to harvest the plant crop your operation is a farm.
There are many places, predominantly in the western half of North America, that don't feed their animals prepared fodder. Mostly cattle and sheep operations. They have winter and summer grazing areas. This is a ranch in the purest form.
There are many today that have a blended or diversified operation in order to increase their animal carrying capacity. They are the ones that put up hay and or a grain crop in the summer, and feed it back in the winter. Also some sell the plant crop to others.
Then there are operations that primarily produce a plant crop for profit. They are a farm.
If you produce a crop for self consumption it likely neither, its a homestead.
The bottom line is, the definitions have been tainted so call it what you want to.

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That which is tolerated by the first generation is magnified in the next.

CIW

Hmm when I was trying to figure it out I decided that a ranch raised only one kind of animal...like a horse ranch, cattle ranch, ostrich ranch...where as a farm had a variety of animals and plants growing besides just feed for the one type of animal on the place.

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www.MontanaSticksAndStones.com at Goshen Farm

If it's a significant occupation/income, and you grow livestock only (not feed livestock, btw, as that's a feedlot), it's a ranch. (Unless you're a dairy, in which case...it's a dairy! lol)
If it's a significant occupation/income and you grow crops or are diversified with livestock as well, you're a farmer.

If you just own some ground but don't actually derive a large portion of your income from it, it's neither.
It's just your "place." Or "homestead," if you must.

Obviously you can call it whatever you want, but if you have a 5 acre patch of ground that you insist is a "ranch", actual ranchers are going to give you funny looks.
Just because you have a well-stocked medicine cabinet doesn't make you a doctor, either.




PS: "cowboy" has nothing to do with attire. A cowboy is an employee on a horseback-based ranch.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

what about stations?

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Isn't it a hoot to find out there is a neccessity to judge a person harshly based on using undefined language that has been personally arbitrated.? As the Queen of Hearts said to Alice "off with their heads."

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For we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old men knew all things which are on earth: yet forsooth they did not know; but we do not contradict them, for neither do we know.

It is just marketing. We have 200 acre ranches for sale for $600,000 while the 200 acre farms are for sale for $100,000. Well, you get the point anyways.

I've always delineated between the two with goal and method.

Primarily animals grazing on pasture/range mostly on their own = ranch
Primarily vegetable/grain with a few "confined" animals that you mostly bring feed to = farm

Also, ranch land doesn't tend to be irrigated; while farm pastures are. And primary work/money efforts are focused differently... ranches = fencing, farms = inputs.

I think ranches just tend to be a bit bigger since the holding capacity determines the stocking rate since the animals aren't being brought (much) feed and you're relying on rain. You could have a 3 acre ranch, but you wouldn't have many (large) animals on it.

In West where it is dry I have seen Ranches irrigate pasture land.

big rockpile

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If I need a Shelter
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I go to the Rock!

And I've seen farms in PNW that didn't need to irrigate their pastures.

"tend to" means usual/normal/average/common... it's not all-inclusive, there will always be special cases.

IME most ranches are low-intensive management -- animals are turned out to minimally improved pasture (even scrubland) and pretty much left to their own devices except for dipping/branding/shearing/driving to new range or to auction. The majority of the remaining time is spent on patroling the perimeter and maintaining fences.

While most farms are medium to high intensive management -- animals are kept anywhere from total confinement to rotating improved pastures, and they're dealt with frequently. The majority of the remaining time is spent on agriculture.

Ranch to mean has always meant a place in the west grazing lots of cattle or sheep on rangeland. A farm means to me an operation that grows grains/vegetables/fruits or raises animals in confinement.

Texas seems to have a lot of "olive ranches", California has many "wine" ranches, Oregon has "fruit" ranches, Idaho has "potato" ranches, etc, some a century old. Basically westerners started using ranch mostly from the Spanish word rancho, which originally meant a small farm.
People just kept using it, especially old local families.
Of course it has been co-oped by people wanting to be part of the old west but that does not invalidate it's use amoung those who have had ranches, sometimes not too large, for generations.
I think Hollywood has provided a distorted picture that all ranches are a certain type, popularized in the 1950's.

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For we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old men knew all things which are on earth: yet forsooth they did not know; but we do not contradict them, for neither do we know.

Just my own 2 cents..
Anyplace, large or small West of the Mississippi , which raises livestock is a ranch. Everything else is a farm..LOL..

It is funny isn't it?!?!
I have three ant farms on the property. Some people call them ant hills, but they are really ant farms. They eat what we grow, grass and bugs, in our natural pastures and gardens, some people call it a lawn. We would be a ranch if we were west of the Mississippi.

I sold all the cattle-but I have horses, orchard and gardens. I live on, and own, a farm.

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In Life, We Weep at the thought of Death'
Who Knows, Perhaps in Death,
We Weep at the though of Life.

..................Is Tx the Only state with........Chicken Ranches ? , lol , fordy