Life in the sheep camp would be lonely. Usually there would be one sheepherder in a camp. He, with his only companion a dog, would tend to the sheep alone for months at a time. The camp would be established in the center of the pasturage. When the sheep had exhausted the grass in the area, the flock and camp would be moved to another area and the process repeated through the season. The loneliness of the sheepherder was noted by the Episcopal Missionary Bishop of Wyoming, Ethelbert Talbot, in his 1906 My People of the Plains:

The life of a sheep-herder is a peculiarly lonely one. Often months pass without giving him the opportunity of seeing a human being. His faithful dog is his only companion. He generally has a team and a covered wagon in which he sleeps at night during the winter, and wherein he stores the necessary provisions for his daily food. It is his duty to seek the best available pasturage, and, when the grass in one neighborhood has been exhausted, to drive the flock to a new and fresh supply. It is not to be wondered at that such a life often ends in insanity. It is said that the asylums are repleted year by year by a large contingent of these unfortunates. Indeed, their lot is a most pathetic one, and they sometimes even lose the power of speech and forget their own names.

The Right Reverend Talbot was not the only one who suggested that sheepherding led to insanity. while many of the images of cowboys and cattle trailing depict a romantic or adventurous life, but To be blunt, sheep herding aint romantic. It is, and remains to this day, lonely. It entails being on duty tending to the sheep, guarding against preditors, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Sundays and holidays included. See In re Workders Compensation Claim of Raul Bejarnano Gomez, Deceased, 2010 WY 67, 231 P.3d 902 (1910). [Writer's note: Gomez was shot by a fellow sheepherder with a rifle used to kill preditors. After the two had shared a thirty-pack of beer. The two got into a fight. Even though the two were where they were supposed to be, the Court held that the claim had to be denied because the drinking fest and the subsequent fight was a "recreational or social event"]

Indeed at the time of Bishop Talbot's comment, many believed that sheep herding lead to insanity. John Beiter and Mark Beiter in their 2000 "An Enduring Legacy: The Story of Basques in Idaho," University of Nevada Press, Reno, p. 36. note that insanity was regarded as an occupational hazard, referred to as "being Sheeped" or "Sage Brushed."

The 1897-1897 Biennial Report of the California State Commission on Lunacy reported that two inmates of Stockton State Hospital were driven insane by sheepherding. In contrast, the Report listed only one whose mental problems were caused by "drinking California wine." In the early years of the Twentieth Century the debate raged in the leading magazines as to the cause of the alleged insanity amongst sheepherders. Several writers of the day contended that it was the constant bleating of the sheep. When E. P. Swan, Secretary of the Wyoming State Board of Sheep Commissioners in attempted to refute such allegation by pointing out that writers statisically are twice as likely to go insane, the writer of the original article in Pacific Magazine, 1905, rejoined:

"Sheep herding is a lazy job at best, and the [pajoritive] is the laziest creature on earth. For twenty dollars a month he is willing to sit in the sand and listen to the never-ending bleating until the little mind he has gives way, and they fetch him in from the range insane. He is glad to take the chance for twenty dollars a month. And the [pajorative] is not the only shepherd in the west. On the vast ranges of Nevada and Wyoming you may run across an occasional college man tending the sheep. Once, indeed, a college professor, ill of consumption, undertook to follow five thousand bleaters for the summer. In autumn they found him insane, on his hands and knees among the sheep, bleating with them. Day after day his eyes behold only a brilliant turquoise sky, in which hangs a sun of brass; an ocean sweep of sage-flecked sand, and a slowly moving, compact mass of sheep. His ears hear no sound save the steady, baa, baa, day and night, affecting him as the Chinese criminal of ancient days was affected by the regular tap, tap, of a hidden drum."

Of course, there is always a different viewpoint. Arthur Chapman, a columnist for a Denver newspaper and later famed for his poem "Out Where the West Begins," printed at the bottom of the page, painted an almost idealic picture in "In the Land of the Sheep Barons," North American Review of Reviews, Vol 33, p. 212, 1908:

Naturally the central figure in the sheep business is the herder. He is the man upon whom the owner depends for the safety of an average flock of from 2000 to 2500 sheep, which may be worth from $10,000 to $30,000. It has been the custom to look upon the sheep herder as a man who takes up this employment because he is "locoed" or because he cannot do anything else. Nothing could be further from the truth. No sheep-owner could put so much responsibility on the shoulders of an incompetent or irresponsible man. The herders are selected from the best material the labor market has to offer, and are paid from $50 to $75 a month and board. The herder is furnished with everything he needs, and there is no limit to the quantity or quality of his fare. He is given carte blanche to order what the market affords, and the "camp tender," who comes with supplies once or twice a week, sees that the order is promptly filled. The sheep wagon, in which the herder lives in winter, is a veritable house on wheels. It is a canvas-covered wagon, containing cookstove, bunk, cupboard, and, in short, everything that can make life bearable for the herder. In one of these wagons a man can remain comfortable while a "norther" rages without. In summer, while in the mountains, he lives in a tent, but this is all a man requires among such ideal natural surroundings.

The following list of supplies for sheep camps, which includes no canned goods, was adopted: Apples, evaporated or dried; apricots, axle grease, axe, ammunition for rifle, bacon, also salt side; baking powder, beans, butter, (three pounds per man per month), beef, only through special arrangement with foreman; cheese, coffee, corn meal, coal oil, extracts (limited—vanilla and lemon); fruits, dried or evaporated; flour, honey, horse shoe nails, horse shoes, jam, ketchup, lard, milk, macaroni, mustard, mutton, matches, nails, nutmeg, oatmeal, onions, potatoes, prunes, pickles, pepper, raisins, (three packages per camp a month); rice, sugar, syrup, soap, salt, soda, tea, wagon and harness repairs.

If you only knew the hardships these poor men endure. They go two together and sometimes it is months before they see another soul, and rarely ever a woman.

There were twelve camps and that means twenty-four men. We roasted six geese, boiled three small hams and three hens. We had besides several meat-loaves and links of sausage. We had twelve large loaves of the best rye bread; a small tub of doughnuts; twelve coffee-cakes, more to be called fruitcakes, and also a quantity of little cakes with seeds, nuts, and fruit in them,--so pretty to look at and so good to taste. These had a thick coat of icing, some brown, some pink, some white. I had thirteen pounds of butter and six pint jars of jelly, so we melted the jelly and poured it into twelve glasses.

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Then we clambered in and away we went. Mrs. Louderer drove, and Tam O'Shanter and Paul Revere were snails compared to us. We didn't follow any road either, but went sweeping along across country. No one else in the world could have done it unless they were drunk. We went careening along hill- sides without even slacking the trot. Occasionally we struck a particularly stubborn bunch of sagebrush and even the sled-runners would jump up into the air. We didn't stop to light, but hit the earth several feet in advance of where we left it. Luck was with us, though. I hardly expected to get through with my head unbroken, but not even a glass was cracked.

It would have done your heart good to see the sheep-men. They were all delighted, and when you consider that they live solely on canned corn and tomatoes, beans, salt pork, and coffee, you can fancy what they thought of their treat. They have mutton when it is fit to eat, but that is certainly not in winter. One man at each camp does the cooking and the other herds. It doesn't make any difference if the cook never cooked before, and most of them never did.