They might have to rethink the term “cowboy” in the stockyards at the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo.
The state’s primary cow college, Colorado State University, is putting a lot more women into the profession than men.
“A guy told me yesterday that when he went through veterinary school (at CSU) in the ’50s or ’60s, there were hardly any women,” said Rachel Motteram, 20, a junior from Palouse, Wash.
Not anymore.
A growing number of women are tending cattle at the stock show, and if CSU enrollment is an indicator, women will make up an essential part of the next generation who will be minding Colorado’s ranches – from working livestock to conducting research.
CSU’s animal-sciences department has an enrollment of 448 women and 275 men. Among those studying equine science, it’s 385 women to 85 men.
“Maybe it’s the whole women’s liberation thing in our society,” Motteram said. “But you see a lot more women in the outdoors parts of agricultural, and even more so in support services like technology, marketing and communications.”
Actually, says CSU animal-sciences professor Dennis Lamm, women began nudging men out of animal-sciences classes more than 30 years ago.
Lamm witnessed the shift at his first teaching assignment at Virginia Tech in the early 1970s, as women started taking animal-sciences courses to prepare for veterinary school.
But with the competition so fierce to become veterinarians, women see animal sciences as a good backup career. Many go on to get jobs in agricultural sales and other agri-businesses, Lamm said.
Plenty just want to work with horses and will work for low wages to do so, he said, adding that many students who transfer into CSU have the financial backing of parents to take low-paying jobs after graduation.
“Some of them have no idea what they want to do when they graduate,” Lamm said. “They just want to be around horses.”
Men tend to want careers with bigger paychecks, so they enter a more lucrative field or wind up working on the family farm, he said.
CSU junior Maggie Burton agrees. The double major in animal sciences and agri-business says most guys prefer working on the family farm over studying in the classroom.
“Joining the family business is much more of an opportunity for them,” she said. “We kind of have to look elsewhere to get more of an agricultural education.”
Men also shy away from equine studies because it’s often seen as too feminine, several CSU students said.
“I think, among girls, horses are seen as more of a friendly type of animal than a cow or sheep,” said CSU sophomore Candice Curry, whose family runs a feedlot near McClave.
While women have helped keep agricultural and livestock programs strong at CSU, the ranches are changing in a lot of ways, said Casey Thompson, chief herdsman for the CSU research farm.
“Kids today need to have a lot more business savvy, and they have to understand technology,” he said. The stock show is part of that evolving curriculum.
At stalls in the stockyards, students groom the handsome seed stock raised at CSU’s 600-acre ranch north of Fort Collins. They’re ready to tell anyone who stops by about the genetics and feeding of Herefords and Angus.
“We want to give our students the experience of working with the stock and doing it right,” Thompson said.
The students exhibit the quality of research, as well as the value of a CSU diploma, to thousands of visitors at the show. But more than anything, they’re selling themselves, Motteram said.
“Everybody you meet is a potential job contact,” she said. After CSU, she plans to go to graduate school to study veterinary pharmacy.
North Dakota rancher Wyatt Ferguson, 63, was pleased to see the CSU students and teens in the stockyard. The mix of gender and academic backgrounds gives him optimism for the business. And the stockyards can’t be replaced as a vital institution of training for cowboys and cowgirls, he said.
“I promise you, if you want to learn about livestock, you learn it from working with livestock,” he said. “Books and computers will never replace that.”
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
