---
title: "Farmworker, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animal"
description: "Attend to live farm, ranch, open range or aquacultural animals that may include cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses and other equines, poultry, rabbits…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Farmworker, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animal

**Category:** Farming, Fishing, and Forestry · **SOC code:** 45-2093 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 45-2093.00

Attend to live farm, ranch, open range or aquacultural animals that may include cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses and other equines, poultry, rabbits, finfish, shellfish, and bees. Attend to animals produced for animal products, such as meat, fur, skins, feathers, eggs, milk, and honey. Duties may include feeding, watering, herding, grazing, milking, castrating, branding, de-beaking, weighing, catching, and loading animals. May maintain records on animals; examine animals to detect diseases and injuries; assist in birth deliveries; and administer medications, vaccinations, or insecticides as appropriate. May clean and maintain animal housing areas. Includes workers who shear wool from sheep and collect eggs in hatcheries.

Also advertised as: Cowboy; Farm Hand; Farrowing Worker; Herdsman; Livestock Handler; Milking Worker; Ranch Hand; Rancher.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $36,670 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $17.63/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $27,360 to $54,080, with the middle half between $31,020 and $45,700
- **Total US employment:** 32,810
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 26,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 59/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 32,810 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $27,360 |
| 25th | $31,020 |
| 50th (median) | $36,670 |
| 75th | $45,700 |
| 90th | $54,080 |
| Mean (average) | $39,260 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AK | $50,450 | $49,287 | 40 |
| WV | $48,460 | $54,147 | 40 |
| HI | $47,050 | $42,792 | 160 |
| MN | $46,020 | $46,663 | 580 |
| WA | $45,370 | $42,397 | 1,100 |
| ME | $42,170 | $43,452 | 140 |
| MD | $41,760 | $39,787 | 310 |
| VT | $40,730 | $41,579 | 80 |
| ID | $40,580 | $42,495 | 480 |
| ND | $40,320 | $45,324 | 130 |
| CO | $39,740 | $38,563 | 1,270 |
| NH | $39,520 | $37,940 | 130 |
| NJ | $38,960 | $35,807 | 250 |
| WY | $38,920 | $41,989 | 470 |
| NC | $38,750 | $41,081 | 910 |

34 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 49 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 202,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 195,700 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 6,400 jobs, or -3.2%. Declining: -3.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 26,600 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Some College Courses | 39.4% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 25.0% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 18.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 8.9% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 8.5% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 0.2% |

## What the work involves

- Feed and water livestock and monitor food and water supplies.
- Inspect, maintain, and repair equipment, machinery, buildings, pens, yards, and fences.
- Move equipment, poultry, or livestock from one location to another, manually or using trucks or carts.
- Examine animals to detect illness, injury, or disease, and to check physical characteristics, such as rate of weight gain.
- Segregate animals according to weight, age, color, and physical condition.
- Clean stalls, pens, and equipment, using disinfectant solutions, brushes, shovels, water hoses, or pumps.
- Provide medical treatment, such as administering medications and vaccinations, or arrange for veterinarians to provide more extensive treatment.
- Mark livestock to identify ownership and grade, using brands, tags, paint, or tattoos.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Selection — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Production and Processing — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Food Production — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Trunk Strength — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.78 |
| C — Conventional | 2.95 |
| I — Investigative | 2.66 |
| S — Social | 2.50 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.92 |
| A — Artistic | 1.42 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 81.7 |
| ISTP | 74.0 |
| ISFJ | 70.1 |
| ESTJ | 68.6 |
| INTJ | 60.6 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Animal Breeder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-breeder) — median $51,130
- [Farmworker and Laborer, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-and-laborer-crop-nursery-and-greenhouse) — median $35,660
- [Agricultural Equipment Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/agricultural-equipment-operator) — median $41,730
- [Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutter and Trimmer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/meat-poultry-and-fish-cutter-and-trimmer) — median $38,300
- [Slaughterer and Meat Packer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/slaughterer-and-meat-packer) — median $40,130
- [Grader and Sorter, Agricultural Products](https://nuecareer.com/careers/grader-and-sorter-agricultural-products) — median $35,730
- [Agricultural Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/agricultural-technician) — median $49,630
- [First-Line Supervisor of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-farming-fishing-and-forestry-workers) — median $59,320
- [Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-caretaker) — median $35,360
- [Laborer and Freight, Stock, and Material Mover, Hand](https://nuecareer.com/careers/laborer-and-freight-stock-and-material-mover-hand) — median $40,240

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal