What were American cowboys on the open range like?

The Open Range was where cattle ranchers kept huge amounts of open land (some may be fenced with wood) this allowed cowboys to look after the land and look over to see if there were any problems.

As well as this there were such laws known as "open range laws" where cattle ranchers wanted to keep their cattle safe, and done this through the cowboys.

In addition to this cowboys often would kill cattle in the ranches if they were ill, or there was too many to stop illness from spreading, or to free up space and to use the cattle for supplies and food.

Cattle was also driven to the market by a cowboy/some cowboys while some stayed back to look after the other cattle as not all could be taken as cattle ranches overstocked on cattle, ending the open ranges success, where the cattle was then kept on smaller, quieter ranches called fenced ranches after the invention of barbed wire.

So overall the cowboys main job was to overview the ranches where the cattle were living to see if the were okay, but as well as this the cowboys also had more jobs on the plains such as; killing cattle if necessary and driving them up to markets if any were on at the time. They were very savage and took their job seriously before they were overrun by the invention of barbed wire.