Texas longhorns as oxen

[KGerstner89]

@Joshua Kingsley 18893 wrote:

Another factor that Vicki and many others often voice is that if you really like the cattle you are more likely to have sucess than if you have a breed that you don’t like.

Joshua

If I had it my way I would try to train a bison but I don’t see that happening.

[CharlyBonifaz]

My book Oxen A teamster’s guide is here and have been reading it all day.

best way to get hooked 😀

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Lots of people I’ve spoken to really rate longhorns, especially for riding – some of the most interesting things I’ve seen cattle do has been with longhorns 😀 They seem very intelligent and athletic – beautiful too. I’ve been desperate to get some here in the UK for a long time but it is *highly* expensive to import embryos, semen etc. so it has to wait 🙁

[KGerstner89]

Haven’t been on in awhile but if you were to import semen witch bread would you cross the Texas longhorns with.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

ooo big question! probably white park?

http://industrious.icserver26.de/content/news/news1/71photo1.jpg

[Joshua Kingsley]

I crossed a Milking Short Horn with texas long horn this last year and got a nice red calf. she is blocky and looks real nice.

Joshua

[KGerstner89]

Do you got a picture of her Joshua?

[KGerstner89]

One of my bigest questions i got is how fast do there horns grow? I know they can grow to over 8ft but by then he would prob be hambuger meat. It will be helpfull to know how long i would beable to work a team befor there horns start to become a problem or would it be possable to trim the horns so it wont become a problem.

[OldKat]

@KGerstner89 19279 wrote:

One of my bigest questions i got is how fast do there horns grow? I know they can grow to over 8ft but by then he would prob be hambuger meat. It will be helpfull to know how long i would beable to work a team befor there horns start to become a problem or would it be possable to trim the horns so it wont become a problem.

The longhorns in my area seem to be slow growing, late maturing type of individuals. Not sure how fast their horns grow, but it doesn’t seem fast based on those I see in pastures in our area & there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of them in a 40 to 50 mile radius of where I live.

Remember, the longhorns that built the cattle business in Texas were free roaming and were gathered by the drovers before they drifted them north to markets; primarily in Kansas. I have a link somewhere to a book that was written in the late teens or early twenties by oldtimers that drove longhorns up the trail in the 1860’s through the late 80’s & even a few into the 1890’s. Most mention that those big steers and cows were mainly 5 to 7 year olds. That would make sense, because with their lanky frame few would be expected to even approach finish weight before they were at least 3 to 4 years old. To really get a cover on them they were probably 5 or better. That would probably account for the stories of them having the truly big horn spans.

I would expect steers kept on grain would grow out much faster, probably would have better horn growth, too. There are bound to be some websites for people that sell longhorns. Shoot some of them an email and ask how fast the horns grow on their animals.

You could saw their horns off to whatever length you desire, but of course you would then have a blunt horn instead of a tapered horn. Might tend to destroy the look you are trying to acheive.

[Joshua Kingsley]

I will try to get a picture of “magic or Sharpee” as she is know as when the doc clears me to go to the barn again…. somthing about a hole in your spine and infection they get a little on edge when it comes to being around anything that might cause an infection.
Her sire is a longhorn bull called Magic Marker who was sold by Tarus? sires out of PA. Her dam is a roan milking shorthorn that is about 10 now. A real nice older cow that looks lots younger than she is.

Joshua

[jac]

OldKat you have 10s of thousands of these Texas Longhorns in your area !!… are they still a viable beef breed ? or are they used for out crossing to more modern types ? Do they still look the same as the 1800s example.. forgive the questions but as a Scotsman I have never seen these cattle except for my John Wayne films… who along with Ben Johnson made a great cowboy film BTW…
John

[mother katherine]

Joshua,
Love the name “Sharpee” out of “Magic Marker”. Sounds like some of the gags I pull with sheep names.
Back to topic. Oldkat, were you thinking of “The Longhorns” by J Frank Dobie? I LOVE that book. When it was pulled from the local library shelves I hounded the librarian for it. Went the night before the book sale to “help” carry, unload and display books until I found it. Told the girl, “I’ll pay anything you want for it!” She thought I was nuts; but I now have my own copy: plastic wrapped and with the original dustjacket.
Kgerstner: if you can get a copy of that book, do it. I think it’s out of print, but Amazon or one of those used book sites may be able to find you one. Of course, as the guy was a Texan, the book may be right on some local library’s shelves. Try an interlibrary loan.
oxnun

[OldKat]

@jac 19298 wrote:

OldKat you have 10s of thousands of these Texas Longhorns in your area !!… are they still a viable beef breed ? or are they used for out crossing to more modern types ? Do they still look the same as the 1800s example.. forgive the questions but as a Scotsman I have never seen these cattle except for my John Wayne films… who along with Ben Johnson made a great cowboy film BTW…
John

Long answer to a short question follows: The area where I live is pretty much a cow-calf region anyway. My county has about 60,000 cows on January 1 inventory, and that is not counting bulls, yearlings or calves. Even with the recent explosion of urbanites moving to the area, cows still out number people probably 3 to 1. The counties to the north, west and south are bigger counties and have more cattle than we do, some having double what we do.

Surprisingly, the actual number of cows per herd in Texas is smaller than the rest of the country. The last year I saw statistics for this was in 2000, but in that year the national average cow herd was 31 head per owner. In Texas it was 21 head. Part of that is due to the fact that in other parts of the country people that own cattle have them for a fairly common reason … to produce beef.

In our area land prices have gone from $1,500 to 2,500 per acre ten years ago to the current $20,000 to 25,000 per acre. If you have cows you can get an “Ag Exemption” to dramatically lower your property taxes, so virtually every piece of property has cows on it. They also help keep the grass down but realistically people want them as a property tax dodge. With no state income tax our property taxes can be quite high, so the cattle “add value” just by existing. This is true pretty much over the entire state.

The land owners really don’t give a rip what kind of cattle they have they just want to “have some cows” … no thought given to making money, or even breaking even. So many, many of them opt for longhorns, because of the “romance” of them. Problem is they are very hard on fences, they just lower their heads and plow through all but the best of fences. You WILL NOT keep a longhorn bull in his pasture if he decides to go “visiting” with the neighbors cows. I have Red Angus cattle, so I really have no use for longhorn-cross calves. If I go look a piece of lease property and the neighboring place has longhorns on it I just keep going. I’ve dealt with them in the past and have no intention of doing it again.

A few people seek out longhorns to breed heifers to, because their calves are born tiny, tiny. However if you take a calf to the sale barn that is obviously a longhorn cross you will practically give it away. Feeder buyers won’t pay much for them because it takes so long to finish them out. Hope I don’t sound anti-longhorn, because they are a great part of our heritage. It is just that I have had some really bad experiences with them and the irresponsible people that owned them.

Not sure how the current day longhorns compare to the semi-feral cattle of the late 1800’s era. I do see a wide variation in colors and type today, but that was probably true back then as well.

[OldKat]

@mother katherine 19299 wrote:

Joshua,
Love the name “Sharpee” out of “Magic Marker”. Sounds like some of the gags I pull with sheep names.
Back to topic. Oldkat, were you thinking of “The Longhorns” by J Frank Dobie? I LOVE that book. When it was pulled from the local library shelves I hounded the librarian for it. Went the night before the book sale to “help” carry, unload and display books until I found it. Told the girl, “I’ll pay anything you want for it!” She thought I was nuts; but I now have my own copy: plastic wrapped and with the original dustjacket.
Kgerstner: if you can get a copy of that book, do it. I think it’s out of print, but Amazon or one of those used book sites may be able to find you one. Of course, as the guy was a Texan, the book may be right on some local library’s shelves. Try an interlibrary loan.
oxnun

No, actually I was thinking of a book that is a series of really, really short stories told by guys that were youngsters when they pushed herds north. The Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers undertook the project of gathering these stories together in the late 19-teens because they realized that those old guys were passing away at a rapid rate and their stories would be lost forever if they weren’t collected. I’ll see if I can find a link to it, it is on the University of Texas Library website; that much I know for sure.

J Frank Dobie once worked for UT and he very well may have used this book as a reference to write The Longhorns.

[jac]

Thanks for the detailed answer OldKat.. its a shame so many bad owners get to keep these cattle just to save some $$$$ .. your mention of not being able to keep them in reminds me of our Blackface sheep.. an old shepherd I knew once said he had the answer to them straying into the wrong field..”put em in the field you dont want them in, and they will end up in the right one”… As you say tho.. a real part of your history and almost an icon along with the bison.. or at least on this side of the puddle…
John

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