On a recent episode of Dirty Jobs, Mike spent the day as a chicken buster in Miami. According to the Miami Department of Code Enforcement wild chickens roaming the streets are quite a problem. Since they started rounding up the wild chickens, they’ve collected over six thousand of the fowl and raised over 10,000 dollars for charity.
Of course that’s not the only thing the Department of Code Enforcement rounds up. They’ve also roped in 381 illegal gambling machines, 997 abandoned cars, 495 junk in yards and 635,541 solid waste citation violations. Sounds like Mike could find plenty of dirty work with those hard working folks.
When it comes to animal roundups, the first thing that pops into the mind are cattle drives. It seems like you can’t have a good western movie without a rip roaring cattle drive happening. Even with all the modern technology that has come to the farming industry, cattle herds still need to be driven. Luckily for us, we can have our own “City Slickers” type adventure. Equitours offers up a wide array of cattle drive vacations. You can also find opportunities to bring in the herd at the Double E Ranch in Gila, New Mexico or the Bitterroot Ranch up in Wyoming. Although you’re sure of plenty of fun, these are considered working vacations. You can get the basics of cattle roundups here. Although if you’re not a skilled rider, you might want to consider signing up for chuck wagon duty.
Next to cattle, another popular round up is with wild horses. These majestic animals roam across the southwest and need to be controlled for their own safety. Over at Wild Horse Round Ups you can get first hand accounts of the roundups conducted by the Cattoor Livestock Roundup Company. They’ve been in the herding business since 1975 and have humanely round up over 150,000 wild horses, wild burros and wild cattle. That’s a lot of “wild” to corral.
On the east coast of Maryland you’ll find the wild horses of Assateague Island. This is a herd of horses that have been around for generations. Nobody is quite sure of their origin but they’re allowed to roam free in the marshlands. Every July there is a wild pony roundup to maintain the herd. For most folks visiting the popular Ocean City resort, a trip to see the wild horses of Assateague is always on the agenda.
Technically when you have to gather more than one critter together in one place, it could be considered a roundup. Down in Sweetwater, Texas they turned a yearly rattlesnake round up into a huge festival. Although catching rattlesnakes is still the primary goal, the rattlesnake roundup actually sounds like a lot of run for the whole family.
If you’ve ever been on a roundup, we’d love to hear about it. Until then, happy trails.
— Meyer
