How big must a property be in order to be considered a ranch ?

If it is yours, call it whatever you want,no matter the size.

I would think it would have to be "big enough" to be able to make some sort of a living off of.

On the left coast 2 acres

A plot of ground in the mid to high 4 digits in acreage can barely be called a ranch in Texas. Normally you would need 5 digits to be taken seriously.

Technically speaking anything that produces an income thru Ag based means is considered a ranch, regardless of acreage size.

As a rule of thumb, the old timers used to tell me 300 acres was the minimum for a place to be considered a “ ranch “


I don’t really put much thought into it anymore. It’s one of those things that’s kind of meaningless

We always called anything over 1000 acres a ranch and anything under a ranchette.

Exactly, for now, it's still a free country.

Human nature and ego enter into the question. As might already be seen in this very thread, anything smaller than what you own isn't a "real ranch".

And, because of vast variances in value for different parts of the state, the size, in itself, has no bearing on the dollars it's worth.

I've always considered "ranchette" to mean something in the 10 to 50 acre range, and comes from a developer-busted up ranch. We always called our 130 to 160 acre places around Fbg. "farms", even though we didn't farm, nor has there been cattle in our family for 4 generations.

A ranch has to be a thousand acres? That's first world nomenclature there.

I’ve always called our place “ camp” instead

Well I didn't say it HAD to be I was lucky, a lot of the ranches I've gotten to run around on have single pastures that are 4-5 thousand acres. Just to be clear, all we ever had were definitely ranchette's, really more farms. We simply taken to calling our small place, "the country" as in "let's go to the country".

I consider my 80 acres a ranch but I wish I had a Ranch

Kind of the same as what is a pond and what is a lake?

We would just say "lets go to the land" - end of the day though whatever you call it ends up being whatever you call it

HOWDY!

yep, any size could be considered a ranch depending on how it's used ... had a friend with ~5 acres that he raised goats on, paid decent returns, it was his little goat ranch.

I refer to our place as a ranch, even though it is not very large, but we do graze cattle and are clearing for eventual haying. Ranch is just easier, even if it does feel a bit presumptuous at times, than calling it our "property" or "camp" or "land", etc. To me, a farm is something different and certainly doesn't apply to our place.

I bought a 10 acre piece of property a while back. Here's how I solved the problem. I bought 3 miniature donkeys and called it my tiny [censored] ranch!!!

A guy in Fredericksburg years ago drove an old Chevy with”1/2 acre Ranch “ on the door.

I was always of the belief that if it’s your place you can call it whatever you want but was looking at RE listings a few days ago and saw a high fenced “ranch” that was under 6 acres, making me rethink my earlier beliefs

Ha. Probably had red dye and an atv to access it.

Who cares. If it produces income outside ag (farm) or you own it call it what you want. If I call our lease a ranch I put the owners name in the name since he owns it and over 1K. Otherwise it is just the hunting lease to me.

That's how I look at it as a hunter. Our "lease" is very large but I still refer to as "the lease", but when referencing in terms of the landowner I call it "Ranch". I think the OP is mostly referring to what a landowner would call it.
I will bite my tongue on what I think about a "6ac HF Ranch".

It depends. 1000 acres in east TX is a good chunk of land. 1000 acres in the panhandle aint squat. In east tx you would call that a ranch, in the panhandle you'd say I have almost 2 sections.