well i look at the typical owner. most have to board their horses or build a structure to keep them in. then they have to be fueled every day even if you havent used one in a month. so cost per mile of use is for most way over anything with a motor. then you either have an hour of every day to tend to them or you have to pay someone else. want to go out of town for a couple weeks you cant stick them in the garage and close the door. then theres the cost of saddles ect. shoeing, vet bills. all to take an hour ride once a month. or you can buy a honda. throw gas in it ride the crap out of it. change oil once a year and when your done park it 15 feet from the front door and it sits happy till you hit the start button again. i still have and old yamaha 3 wheeler i bought new in 82 for 900 bucks. dont have a clue how many miles are on it but LOTS. about the only thing i do to it other then change oil is replace seat covers and seats because it sits outside all day every day and a few sets of tires over the years. it will sit all winter in a snow drift and start first or second pull every spring. how many 40 year old horses are there and how much more would it cost to own one for even 10 years compared to that old 3 wheeler for 40? i love dogs so i can understand the love for an animal. but practical? if that was true youd still see as many tied up to hitching posts
in town as you see parked cars. as to ranchers i dont have a clue about texas but the 3 ranches we hunted in montana and Wyoming all used 4 wheelers as their main work units. they had horses too but they were mostly used for a sunday ride. about the only ranch use was roundups or driving the cows because the bikes scared the cows and horses didnt. even ranchers today use more atvs for work than horses. probably the only money pit deaper than a boat
Actually they don't.
LOL, first of all, you don't know a typical owner of a ranch. I just had my boss pick up a 4 wheeler he thought I could use. It sat in the horse barn till the tires went flat.
Here's some reality you never thought of. Cattle go where they please. Up dry washes, up over the cap rock, down into creeks, through brush, under trees, around trees, between boulders, ect. The list of places a motorcycle, or 4 wheeler can't go, is endless.
Where a bovine can go, a horse can go. Even in auction barns horses are still used. Try roping a 1,200 lb cow that won't pen in rough country off a
Honda. That would be hours of entertainment.
To get the concept, get on YouTube, and watch a few minutes of
cutting horse competition and understand that this type of activity happens everyday in ranch work, but it's for real not an organized competition. Its called
sorting cattle. The ranching area I work, a
honda would be totally useless, except possibly for building fence.
This picture is one i took last year at a roundup. They're sorting calves out of momma cows. See anywhere in there where a Honda would work?
