A herder is a

pastoral The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target au ...

worker responsible for the care and management of a

herd A herd is a social group of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic. The form of collective animal behavior associated with this is called '' herding''. These animals are known as gregarious animals. The term ''herd'' ...

or flock of

domestic animal This page gives a list of domesticated animals, also including a list of animals which are or may be currently undergoing the process of domestication and animals that have an extensive relationship with humans beyond simple predation. This includ ...

s, usually on open pasture. It is particularly associated with

nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

transhumant Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower ...

management of stock, or with

common land Common land is collective land (sometimes only open to those whose nation governs the land) in which all persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

grazing. The work is often done either on foot or

mounted Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, Co ...

. Depending on the type of animal being herd, the English language can give different professional names, for example,

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

for cows,

shepherd A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of Pastoralism, pastoralist animal husbandry. ...

for sheep, or goatherd for goat.

Terminology

Herders may be distinguished by sex (''e.g.'', herdsman, herdswoman or herdboy) or by the type of livestock, for example camelherd, cowherd, duckherd, goatherd or

By country

China

Tibetan herding communities living in the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...

in the

Sichuan Province Sichuan is a Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capita ...

southwest China Southwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Xizang. Geography Southwestern China is a rugged and mountainous region, ...

continued to graze herds on common lands even after the 1982 Household responsibility system. Several reasons have been given for the endurance of the traditional pastoral lifestyle: *complex

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

prevents the division of common grazing lands among individual households * yaks require free grazing and become ill in fenced pasture *rotation of grazing spots Grassland degradation has been an issue. Herding communities and their leaders have taken steps to reach a consensus about sustainable grazing practices. These include developing the community political organization to enforce commitments to seasonal

rotational grazing In agriculture, rotational grazing, as opposed to continuous grazing, describes many systems of pasturing, whereby livestock are moved to portions of the pasture, called paddocks, while the other portions rest. Each paddock must provide all the ...

By livestock type

Cows

There are numerous regional types of cow herder, many with a specific name; these include the stockman of Australia, the

buttero A buttero (, plural butteri) or cavalcante is a herder, mounted herder, usually of horses, of cattle, or of Water buffalo, buffaloes, in Italy, predominantly in the Maremma region, in the Roman Marshes or in the Pontine Marshes. History The ...

, campino,

csikós The ''csikós'' (, singular) is a horse-mounted herdsman of Hungary. The csikós tradition is closely associated with the Hungarian '' puszta'', the temperate grasslands of the Great Hungarian Plain, which encompasses the largest stretche ...

gardian A is a mounted cattle herdsman in the Camargue delta in Provence, southern France. The work is akin to that of the Mexican , the North American cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditiona ...

and gulyás in Europe, the buckaroo,

charro ''Charro'', in Mexico, is historically the horseman from the countryside, the Ranchero, who lived and worked in the haciendas and performed all his tasks on horseback, working mainly as vaqueros and caporales, among other jobs. He was ren ...

and

vaquero The ''vaquero'' (; , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in what what is today Mexico (then New Spain) and Spanish Florida from a method brought to the Americ ...

in North America, and the

gaucho A gaucho () or gaúcho () is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the southern part of Bolivia, and the south of Chilean Patago ...

, huaso,

llanero A (, 'plainsman') is a Venezuelan and Colombian herder. The name is taken from the Llanos grasslands occupying eastern Colombia and western-central Venezuela. During the Spanish American wars of independence, lancers and cavalry served in b ...

Terminology

By country

China

By livestock type

Cows

Goats

Sheep

See also

References