What affect did the the rail roads have on ranching?

Question:Eliminated the need for cattle drives which were very expensive. Cows died and became sick, they lost weight. There was a danger of theft and it took time and money to pay hired hands to help with the drive.

It was huge

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Eliminated the need for cattle drives which were very expensive. Cows died and became sick, they lost weight. There was a danger of theft and it took time and money to pay hired hands to help with the drive.

It was huge

Hidden Valley Ranch?

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Rail roads were the means in which cattle was transported back in the day, this was before semi-trucks. Many cattle drives started in the grazing pastures (some times as much as 100 miles away) and ended up at railroad stations where the cattle would be loaded and taken cross country to be auctioned off, if they weren't auctioned on the spot. Thus rail roading made ranching a lucrative, cross country business.

they put the cows on the train, no more cowboys

They brought a lot of chinese to work the rail roads. After that they then worked on farms as cheap labor. I am guessing here but it sounds good to me.

the Effect was that it made it easier to get cattle to feed lots for sale. But it also made it harder for the ranchers who had railroads running across their property. Cows on the tracks, etc. or build more fences.

It made the travel time of moving meat(cows) a lot shorter and basically created the meat market.

Took away land. Scared the animals. Killed when they were on the tracks...no fences then.

That's all I can think of at the moment..... Common sense stuff so I guess I wasn't much help. :)

Nothing. Even the great project to build AMERICA wouldn't touch those desolate areas and creepy people. Thus they still herd them for zillions of miles, sick and infected and beaten to be your steak at $20 a pound, if you live.

nothing special

Their biggest effect was that they provided efficient transportation to the slaughterhouses in Chicago. They eliminated the need for long cattle runs.

Harleigh Kyson Jr.

"They come out west and built a lot of fences. / And built them right across our cattle ranches." (Rogers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!)

Ranching depended on wide open spaces. The railroads came along, and started out disrupting the open spaces on their own. They also made it so that people could settle more and more in those areas. The population of the west, brought on by the railroad industry, meant that the ranchers had less space for the cattle to roam.