Texas Long Horn Cattle

Spannish animal brought to the contient by Columbus.

Hardy Animal with colors and mixes are so various that no two appear exactly alike. Noted for their Long horns.

Lean Meat.

High fertility.

Calving ease.

Disease and parasite resistance.

Hardiness.

Longevity.

Most efficient to utilizes coarse forage material on marginal range

The only cattle breed which is truly adapted to America.

Well suited for the Prairie.

At the end of the civil war, with beef stocks in the east exhausted because of need to feed soldiers on both sides during the civil war, America looked for a ready supply. The Texas Longhorn with its roots in Spain had gone largely unattended during civil war and reproduced at a great rate. While their meat was considered lean and very stringy, it was beef and that is what the public demanded. With no rail system into Texas the only means of getting them east and west was by trailing them overland. As they encountered farms with their Shorthorn cattle a problem arose. The Longhorn had a tick that would move to the Shorthorn, infecting them with “Texas tick fever” that was almost always fatal. To protect their livestock, farmers and others asked the Topeka legislature to move the north/south quarantine line west from Sedgwick County. No Longhorns could be found on the east of that line without fear of a hefty fine.

The farmers shorthorn cattle were saved, until they were shortly replaced by the white faced Hereford cattle.