Looking for a new life (tips, jobs, career, companies)

[ChrisNKris12]

My fiance and I just had a baby on June 6th. We are currently living in Ohio and the area we live in is lacking in the job department. My fiance has been into Rodeo for years and he would love to work on a ranch. Before we met he had a chance to take a ranching job in Wyoming where he would work with cattle and they had housing and paid weekly. I've seen many ads for ranches hiring but I have absolutely no experience and he has very little besides riding bulls. I need help finding reliable sources to talk to for us to try and move out of Ohio. We would love to start our lives over somewhere else. This is a lifestyle I would love for my daughter to grow up in but we dont want to take a chance and move without having something set in stone job wise first. Before she came along I would've said ok lets just go and take our chances but now that she is here thats not a chance I'm willing to take. I have to make sure we can take care of her needs. So we are open really to going anywhere my fiance has shown a liking to Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, North and South Dakota but really we are open to absolutely anywhere. I need some advice, suggestions, tips, just plain old help!

[Rambler123]

Hmmm... Well, I'd have to admit that ranching as a career is probably about as far away from my background (engineering) as something can get, but I'll try to offer what help I can.

1) The effects of the current drought: As you no doubt know, a lot of the US, particulary the Midwest and Plains states is in the grip of a serious drought. This could throw a wrench into plans to get into ranching, at least in the short term. I'm really not sure how much the drought has affected ranchers, though I know it's made a mess out of the corn crops and other harvests this year, so it is safe to say that at least some of those costs are being passed along to ranchers who use feed corn. Anyway, this may postpone hiring, but don't let it discourage you - when the rains return, things will be easier, I'd guess.

2) Ranching and experience: While you speak of not having much experience in ranching other than riding bulls, I do wonder if you have other applicable experience even if it doesn't relate as much to the direct, in-the-field part of ranching. I'm not sure of your background, but all I'm getting at is that even if you don't fully qualify for a ranching job, you may qualify for related or supporting jobs in the same field and in the same area. As I said, I know very little about the ranching industry, but most large industries have support positions that cover a wide variety of jobs. Heck, I'd bet that some ranching companies would even be in need of IT or information management folks to keep track of their cattle, etc... no idea how that's done these days, but I'm guessing it's high-tech in some fashion.

Anyway, I hope my musing on the topic help a bit.

Good luck!

[berkeleylake]

I would try to locate people who have worked as ranchers and talk to them (online, email, phone etc) if you don't know of any that live near where you live. Your best bet is to get information from the source itself and ask direct questions about the lifestyle, money, etc.. Most people like to talk about their jobs.

I know nothing about that line of work, other than the job looks to be very physically demanding and as you age, physical labor jobs are sometimes just hard to maintain. That is the only obvious drawback for some people in my limited opinion.

[INTN]

Maybe you should look into dude ranches too. They usually have staff that lives onsite and assist with different things like taking care of the animals, leading trail rides, rock climbing (or whatever that particular ranch offers in activities), food preparation, social events, cleaning, etc... Usually, these people will multitask and do many of these things.