Overview

Dryhead Ranch (formerly Schively-Dryhead Ranch) is an authentic quarter horse and working cattle ranch located in the Dryhead Canyon on the east slopes of the Pryor Mountains, south of Billings, Montana. Dryhead Ranch invites you to experience a lifestyle you've only seen in the movies... experience your first real cattle drive. Ride on unique Horse Drives or brand a calf. Ride a trained cow horse everyday for a week and experience the thrill of turning back a renegade calf into the herd. Cowboys have taken care of this ranch since 1898 and will ride with you on 25,000 acres of open grassland country while taking care of 1,000 head of mother cows and calves. Dryhead Ranch is not a dude ranch, but don't let this scare you away.

Montana’s Big Sky Country takes you away from swimming pools and golf courses to a remote, peaceful, mountain setting where you can hear the creek running at night and see open mountain pastures with breathtaking scenery no matter which direction you ride that day. Dryhead Ranch owns the Dryhead Canyon, which offers one of the best Buffalo Jumps in the United States with bones to excavate and 500-year-old pictograph writings to study and arrowheads to search for in your spare time. Dryhead Ranch raises foundation-bred quarter horses from several studs and 60 mares. During clinics this summer the ranch will be halter breaking and working with many of these young horses getting them ready to sell. Maybe you will want to take one of them home.

Cattle drives start in late April and continue for three weeks until all cows and baby calves have been trailed into Montana. Trail down the Old Sioux trail and through the Big Horn Recreation Area where you will be able to see wild mustangs and Big Horn Sheep. The ranch takes 150-200 cows with calves on each cattle drive and covers a total of 50 miles. During the spring cattle drives guests will stay in an authentic cow camp (weather permitting), letting you feel the true experience of weather, camp food, and cowboy life. On fall cattle drives guests do not camp and the ranch will be trailing only cows from the Montana ranch to the Wyoming pastures. The ranch starts these fall cattle drives in late October and trails for two weeks into early November. Cattle drives are exciting and a thrilling experience when you look ahead for a mile and see cattle all strung out walking toward the ranch, even a beginner can successfully experience a cattle drive.

Ranch weeks start at the end of the cattle drives near the end of May. The grass is green and the wild flowers are out and the ranch becomes a paradise. The ranch weeks immediately begin with branding all the calves that have just been trailed into the ranch. Activities center around the needs of the cattle and the work on a ranch: vaccinating, roping, mini-veterinary needs, wrangling the cavvy, changing pastures, holding herd while working out strays, salting, fencing, and bull gathering. The ranch offers side trips (with a charge) for a day to visit Cody, Wyoming for the Nite Rodeo and take in the museum, the gunfight and the sites of town. Other side trips can be scheduled to go to the Custer Battlefield or the Medicine Wheel on top of the Big Horn Mountain. Summers are a great time for families and the ranch’s fall weeks are great for adults. There is always something for all to experience. Being a cowboy has always been a secret dream of many, both men and women. Dryhead Ranch’s horses are not a barn pet but a companion and partner with whom cowboys work and accomplish great tasks. That is what Dryhead Ranch offers, the opportunity to fulfill that secret dream of cowboy and horse succeeding together.

Dryhead Ranch has been very fortunate to have had NBC, ESPN, National Geographic, and several TV stations visit the ranch and film what they do. The ranch has appeared in an episode of “A Ranch Story”, which will be airing on several national networks. They have an article in "Cowboys and Indians" for March 2007 that features their unique Horse Drives. Dryhead is one ranch in six in the USA that offers a Horse Drive. They are featured in an article about working ranches in the "Horse Illustrated" magazine for February 2007.