Sounds like no actual cowboys were involved. It should have been obvious whether it was a cow or bull even from a distance...it wouldn’t have taken a cowboy 6 months to pen her, and once she was penned there was no need to tranquilize her, a cowboy would have just loaded her out of the pen into a trailer. Cows are sneaky, but as my dad always said cows are dumb and you have to be smarter than the cow. My dad was a great cowboy so he knew what he was talking about for sure.
I’m no cowboy, but if I told a client it would take six months to round up a cow, I’d be out of a job.