How many longhorns are in texas

Longhorn cattle have a hybrid global ancestry, according to a study by University of Texas at Austin researchers published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study of the genome of the Longhorn and related breeds tells a fascinating global history of human and cattle migration. It traces back through Christopher Columbus' second voyage to the New World, the Moorish invasion of Spain and the ancient domestication of the aurochs in the Middle East and India. But it turns out they have a more complex, more hybrid, more global ancestry, and there's evidence that this genetic diversity is partially responsible for their greater resilience to harsh climatic conditions.

To reconstruct the genetic history of Texas Longhorns, McTavish, Hillis and colleagues from the University of Missouri-Columbia analyzed almost 50, genetic markers from 58 cattle breeds. The most comprehensive such analysis to date, it was funded in part by the Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Conservancy, which helped the scientists get access to samples used by ranchers.

Among the findings was that the Texas Longhorn breed are direct descendants of the first cattle in the New World. The ancestral cattle were brought over by Columbus in to the island of Hispaniola.

They traveled the rest of the way to the continent in on the ships of later Spanish colonists. Over the next two centuries the Spanish moved the cattle north, arriving in the area that would become Texas near the end of the 17 th century. The cattle escaped or were turned loose on the open range, where they remained mostly wild for the next two centuries.

Roark Centennial Professor in the College of Natural Sciences, "but they look so different from the cattle you see in Spain and Portugal today. So there was speculation that there had been interbreeding with later imports from Europe.

But their genetic signature is co mpletely consistent with being direct descendants of the cattle Columbus brought over. The study reveals that being a "pure" descendant of cattle from the Iberian peninsula indicates a more complicated ancestry than was understood. Approximately 85 percent of the Longhorn genome is "taurine," descended from the ancient domestication of the wild aurochs that occurred in the Middle East 8,, years ago. As a result, Longhorns look similar to purer taurine breeds such as Holstein, Hereford and Angus, which came to Europe from the Middle East.

The other 15 percent of the genome is "indicine," from the other ancient domestication of the aurochs, in India. These indicine cattle, which often have a characteristic hump at the back of the neck, spread into Africa and from there up to the Iberian peninsula. Spanish cattlemen did not fence in their fields or their herds, and cattle easily wandered off to join the wild population.

In the s, settlers in Texas, then part of Mexico, primarily raised European breeds of cattle. The Texas Longhorn is the result of the accidental crossbreeding of escaped descendants of the Criollo cattle and the cows of early American settlers, including English Longhorns. The easily identifiable result is a wild, slab-sided, ornery, multicolored bovine weighing between 1, and 1, pounds and having a horn spread of 4 to 7 feet.

A Longhorn was considered mature at 10 years, and by then averaged 1, pounds. The combination of these characteristics made Longhorns hearty and self-reliant. One of their drawbacks was their meat.

It was known to be lean, stringy and tough, but was still better than beef from Criollo cattle. It is apt to be a little tough.

By the Mexican War, , the Texas Longhorn had become a recognizable type. The Longhorn did not have many enemies. Native Indians did not hunt the wild cattle; they preferred the meat of the tamer and easier to kill buffalo. The Indians also found more uses for buffalo hides and bones than they did for Longhorn leather. Wolves that followed the migrating buffalo herds remained shy and wary of the mean and often deadly Longhorn cattle. With the waning of the buffalo herds, the prairie grasses from Mexico to Canada became fodder for this new, more marketable animal.

Most non-Indian Americans never developed a taste for buffalo, and more and more people were taking a liking to beef. A single Longhorn cow needed 10 acres of good plains grass a year for feed, 15 if the ground was dry and scrubby, and there were millions of acres available. Living on the rich Texas plains, a cow would normally have 12 calves in her lifetime, ensuring a steady supply for the new market.

During the Civil War, the unattended Longhorns proliferated. By , about 5 to 6 million Longhorns resided in Texas, and most were unbranded. Many Confederate Army veterans returning from the war built up herds by claiming unmarked cattle and branding them. The problem was getting the steers to market. In , Abilene, Kan. For the next two decades, Longhorns hit the trails on long but generally profitable drives.

There had actually been long drives earlier-such as to New Orleans in the s and to California during the gold rush-but the era of the great trail drives did not begin until after the Civil War. After the spring roundup, the cattle herd was driven north. A drive often covered 1, miles and took four to six months. The hours were long, the conditions brutal and the dangers very real. The outdoor work, mostly in the saddle, appealed to a certain breed of men-the American cowboy.

Old steers four years old and older had extremely long horns, and the large number of these animals in postwar trail herds produced the popular misconception that all Texas cattle had unusually long horns. In the s, when younger cattle with improved blood were trailed north, the average horn spread was less than four feet. In the s Texas longhorns were trailed to markets in New Orleans and California.

They developed an immunity to Texas fever , which they carried with them and passed on to herds on the way. In Missouri and the eastern counties of Kansas banned Texas stock, and during the second half of the nineteenth century many states attempted to enact restrictive laws in an effort to fight the fever.

After the Civil War, however, millions of Texas longhorns were driven to market. Over the next twenty years contractors drove five to ten million cattle out of Texas, commerce that helped revive the state's economy.

Longhorns, with their long legs and hard hoofs, were ideal trail cattle; they even gained weight on the way to market. After the buffalo herds were slaughtered and the Plains Indians confined in the late s, private and syndicate ranches spread northward to the open range and free grass on the Great Plains.

Texas longhorns, accompanied by Texas cowboys, stocked most of the new ranches; the trailing era made the cowboy a universal folk hero. The "Big Die-up " of —87, together with the rapid spread of barbed wire fences, brought an abrupt end to the open-range cattle boom and with it the dominance of the longhorn. Fencing made possible controlled breeding, and with the end of free grass it was economically advisable to raise cattle that developed faster than longhorns.

By this time ranchers had begun crossing longhorns with shorthorn Durhams and later with Herefords , thus producing excellent beef animals. Longhorns were bred almost out of existence; by the s only a few small herds remained.