My father-in-law gave us a few head of Longhorns to start our herd in 2005. Those few head lead to where we are today. We have kept some heifers through the years and have purchased several more head along the way. We have a mix of cattle to say the least! The Longhorns have always been our favorite, you just can't beat them when times are tough.
We have 3 different herds: Longhorn, Watusi, and crosses. We ran a Charolais bull with the Longhorns for several years. The Charolais knocked the horns off, 80% of the time produced a solid color calf, and added a "beefier" look. We've always sent our calves to the sale barn, so those qualities offered by the Charolais bull increased our price per pound. We were able to lease another pasture, so we decided to keep some Longhorn/Charolais cross heifers to start with. We ran an Angus bull with them. We had a couple of cows that threw spotted calves, but we finally had a uniform calf crop that had the look for the sale barn. My husband really likes horns, so we purchased a few Watusi heifers. We started them out with a Longhorn bull, but had a run of bad luck when they found some old batteries in their pasture. After losing the bull, we ran an Angus bull with them for a few years and have since switched back to a Longhorn bull. Our Watusi are very different from our other cattle. They are the wildest group we have, yet they are the hardiest group we have. We look forward to keeping any heifers we get and hope to add some good horns to the herd!