by Darol Dickinson

Some insights from Dobie are of great value. Spanish conquistadors brought 17 boat loads of cattle to North America who were hand selected from Andalusia, Spain. They were trained pulling oxen by voice commands. These were not wild crazy cattle that would stampede at the drop of a canteen. The origin of the American Texas Longhorn was a very intelligent beast. Although Hollywood has filmed stampedes as if Texas Longhorns took a run for it every night—tweren’t so. Hollywood also has a couple car chases in every detective movie which also doesn’t happen that often. It’s Hollywood.

MIXING MONGRELIZATION: In 1830 Dobie estimates the wild cattle herds in Texas were “one fifth American imports and the remainder Spanish.” These native cattle were a blend of the larger oxen banded with Spanish cattle. Dobie believed, “Selective breeding, some outside blood, a difference in range—made the Texas Longhorn a rangier, mightier-horned and heavier animal than the straight Mexican.”

Not only did Dobie encourage preservation, he stated, “What the Longhorn might have developed into by intensive, prolonged selective breeding on a well-controlled area of land is not altogether a matter of conjecture.” And, Dobie would be glad to know, that is where we are today—carefully developing a special improved species just like he wanted.

PALE COLORS: In the quest for intensive, prolonged selective breeding a lot of things have changed since the Dobie book. In early years of the Texas Longhorn breed a name for them was “Sonora Reds.” At the San Antonio Stock Yards thousands of cattle would arrive for sale that were all red—a pale light red. Some whole herds were light red. It was a drab camouflage color, but many were this color.

Although many of the cattle Columbus brought in 1494 were black, this color seemed to melt away. By the time of the first registered cattle (1964) there were almost no blacks.

LACY FACES: In the early eighties I owned my first lacy faced Longhorn. This was a color pattern never seen. Today it is very popular. The Wichita Refuge raised WR1918 who was lacy faced—this was a new thing. The Unlimited bull, and with time, many Butler cattle had pretty lacy faces. Today it, as well as blacks, are found in most herds.

HORN HISTORY: Dobie wrote that some of the old cattle who went up the trails had up to six feet of horn tip to tip. Also, some were up to 20 years of age. At the writing of his book this was considered awesome, however the data to prove his robust claims are sketchy. In searching for authentic spreads, or steer mounts, the six foot horn is not easy or maybe impossible to substantiate. A famous steer was Old Blue who is preserved at Canyon, Texas at the Plains Museum. I called the curator and ask for an exact measurement which he measured at 48” plus a hair. The fact is the old cattle had much smaller horns than the legends claim. Look at the art work of Charles Russell and Will James for a more exact size—even they may have been prone to exaggerate horn sizes--increased for the artistic affect.

In the sixties and seventies some steers were being developed that made the Dobie six foot mark. In John Wayne's “The Alamo” film the largest steers of that day (1958) were assembled for the film. Many were still in the fifty inch
range at that time.

PURITY: When breed registration started all cattle were visually inspected for purity. Most producers were located in Texas and southern Texas. Inspectors watched for signs of area Brahman blood which was visible by larger and low set ears. Often the Brahman blood, if only 1/16, would still show the V shape high-horn set. If early cattle had small amounts of Beefmaster blood the Hereford trait of a white face would linger in the genetics. Inspectors refused to register cattle showing these non-pure traits.

After individual inspections ended some foreign blood started to pollute the breed by design or accident. In the north there were some Scotch Highland cows bred to Texas Longhorn bulls to produce a more valued result. These normally had extra hair and a boxy beef look.

When Watusi genetics became available in 1979 unscrupulous producers used this with Longhorns to get longer horns. The Watusi traits were so numerous it was easily detected. Watusi are totally different conformation than Longhorns and have very different horn shapes. Although many have accused others of Watusi blood injections it is my opinion that very little ever was added to the Longhorn registry. Some modern Texas Longhorns are larger, more bone and also more horn circumference. Some who are not educated on all the unique conformation of Watusi see the larger horn bases and guess at Watusi, yet close to 100% of the allegations are unfounded. Today’s improved registered Texas Longhorns are much larger, and much wider horns than Watusi. Watusi would be a step backwards.

Of recent times Pinzgauer genetics have been added to Longhorn show cattle to get thickness, pretty colors, large udders, extra bone and conformation very different than the pure Longhorn. With Pinzgauer genetics the horns have been reduced to a smaller size than in the earliest years of the breed. Due to the “horn—killing” of Pinzgauer blood none of these cattle will every make even medium size exhibition steers. The horn has been bred away, yet the Austrian Pinzgauer thick body type has evolved.

CURRENT TIMES: Here at Dickinson Cattle Co, genetics of sires proven to produce the wider horn spreads are used. Six years ago the DCC rule was for steers being grown for exhibition steers--they had to go over six foot during their third year or face the grinder. Those steers would normally go into the nineties and maybe a few up to 100”. With careful weighing, measuring and evaluating steers for the popular traits today many steers are well over 100” during their forth year. This fine-tuning of the breed has not been fast, easy or economical. Today Texas Longhorn aficionados can raise stunning exhibition steers far superior to historic ones reaching 100” in four years rather than 36” in 20 years.

IN CONCLUSION: Regardless of the current beauty and superior development of the most extreme exhibition steers today, there is conversation around the water-holes about going back to the original genetics to recover some piece of historic quality. Even through the years many have worked to improve all the uniqueness of the breed it is not hard to go back 50 years and start over. Those same genetics are still around. They too are preserved. They can be purchased very economically. They have always been economical.

HOW PURE IS PURE: Now that 100” steers can be as young as age four on a regular basis neigh-sayers assume traits like longevity, fertility, browse utilization, disease resistance, etc., has been lost in the process. To the opposite, there is no evidence to this allegation. In fact, as visual signs of foreign blood have been culled from herds for the last fifty years, many, including myself believe the modern Texas Longhorn cattle are more pure than the original stock inspected in 1964. The modern Texas Longhorn is the best it has ever been in disposition, attractive colors, conformation and lots of H--O--R--N.