A ranch hand works on a farm or ranch, tending to animals and doing menial tasks around the ranch. They either live on the ranch or near it, and work long tedious hours. They attend to live farm or ranch animals that may include cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, bees, or poultry that produce animal products such as milk, fur, skins, meat, feathers, eggs, and honey. They are responsible for feeding, watering, herding, grazing, castrating, branding, weighing, catching, and loading animals into transport vehicles.
The ranch hand cleans and maintains animal housing areas, shears wool from sheep, collects eggs from hatcheries, and do routine menial tasks such as repairing fences, operating heavy machinery like tractors, and so on. They require physical stamina to do tasks around the ranch. They have to be up very early in the mornings and retire late at night.
Only a high school diploma or GED is necessary. A ranch hand earns an average of $25,368 per year, which translates to $12.20 per hour. Career growth is described as having little or no change at 1% and will produce 10,900 new jobs across the US by 2028.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a ranch hand. For example, did you know that they make an average of $12.54 an hour? That's $26,087 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 1% and produce 10,900 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many ranch hands have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed dexterity, listening skills and physical strength.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a ranch hand, we found that a lot of resumes listed 14.6% of ranch hands included farm equipment, while 11.5% of resumes included physical characteristics, and 8.9% of resumes included beef cattle. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the ranch hand job title. But what industry to start with? Most ranch hands actually find jobs in the hospitality and manufacturing industries.
If you're interested in becoming a ranch hand, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 31.1% of ranch hands have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.6% of ranch hands have master's degrees. Even though some ranch hands have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a ranch hand. When we researched the most common majors for a ranch hand, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on ranch hand resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a ranch hand. In fact, many ranch hand jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many ranch hands also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or internship.