Animal Packer

Animal Packer

Department: Department of Agriculture

Location(s): Riggins, Idaho, Salt Lake City, Utah, Seattle, Washington, Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, California, San Francisco, California, Denver, Colorado, Washington, District of Columbia, Miami, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, New Orleans, Louisiana, Boston, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kansas City, Missouri, Albuquerque, New Mexico, New York, New York, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas, Joseph, Oregon

Salary Range: $23.69 - $24.8 Per Hour

Job Summary: This position is located within a National Forest. The incumbent is responsible for providing assistance with the complete care of the stock, including training, feeding, shoeing, and first aid needs.

Major Duties:

• Works as a member of a crew that is responsible for packing horses or mules for trail crews and their equipment such as food, tents, and various tools.
• Such as crosscut saws, chainsaws, rock drills, rock bars, explosives, grip hoists, wheelbarrows and sleds.
• Assists with packing construction materials such as poles, cables, lumber, sand, gravel and bridge materials. May provide pack support for fire crews including food, water, saws, fuel, hoses and portable pumps.
• May supports a variety of resource crews by packing netting, plant presses, screens and fragile survey equipment.
• Under supervision selects the proper type of pack equipment for the loads to be packed.
• With minimal supervision incumbent builds and packs loads and strings of animals together. Builds balanced loads using pack bags, slings, boxes, manty loads with sling ropes, pack racks, etc.
• Ties multiple hitches (e.g. box, diamond, sling, etc.) as appropriate to the load.
• Properly fits all types of riding saddles and pack saddles to mules and horses.
• Responds to medical conditions and emergency situations safely for animals and humans. Acts as “Wilderness First Responder” for the animals, providing first aid as needed including administering shots and wound care.
• Assists with the safe use of restraints for doctoring, shoeing, training, or containment purposes.
• Recognizes the shoeing needs of horses and mules for working in a mountain environment.
• Responsible for providing assistance with the ranch and pasture management including the design, building, maintenance, and safety inspections of stock facilities. Maintaining fences (including board, pipe, wire, and electric fencing).
• Flood irrigation of native pastures and forage utilization monitoring of annual grassland pastures. Operates ranch equipment such as a tractor with an auger to make post holes.
• Pulls a gooseneck stock trailer and bumper-pull stock trailers to safely haul stock on rugged mountain roads. Hauls gear, equipment, supplies, and hay on flatbed trucks and trailers.
• Hauls tractors and equipment for other functions. Reports mechanical or equipment performance problems to the supervisor.
• May spend up to 10 days camping in the wilderness utilizing Leave-No-Trace skills. Responsible for all animal care in wilderness settings.
• Provides assistance in training firefighters, trail crews, wilderness rangers and volunteer groups how to work safely around pack stock.

Qualifications: In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's Federal Wage System Qualifications Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. Transcripts must be provided for qualifications based on education. Provide course descriptions as necessary. Applicants will be evaluated on their ability to perform the duties of the position rather than length of experience. Eligibility will be determined by the relevance, scope and quality of all experience and training, regardless of where or how acquired. Applicants will be ranked and rated based on their knowledge of the job elements identified in this announcement. Ability To Do The Work Of The Position Without More Than Normal Supervision Technical Practices (theoretical, precise, artistic) Use of Measuring Instruments Ability To Interpret Instructions, Specification, etc. (includes than blueprints) Ability To Use and Maintain Tools and Equipment Knowledge of Materials Dexterity and Safety There is no substitution of education for this position. Selective placement Factors A valid state driver's license is required. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. To receive consideration for this position, you must provide updated required documents and meet all qualification requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

How to Apply: Please view Tips for Applicants - a guide to the Forest Service application process. Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (7:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Mountain Time Zone, Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement to be entered into the system prior to its closing. Resumes must not exceed two pages. This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.

Application Deadline: 2026-01-14