Your skin has to be pretty thick when you decide to run a Texas longhorn herd in country Queensland according to Wayne Jones.
"You have to have a bit of patience and take a little bit of criticism from people," he laughs.
"I hear a lot of 'why you breeding that for - they aren't suppose to have horns on' so you cop a little bit of flak.
"We breed them cause I like the cattle and I might be a little old school with a love of western movies and all that."
Mr Jones and his wife Melinda Jones own Waratah Longhorns, Mungungo in the North Burnett near Monto.
The breed is definitely eye-catching and with their massive horns they do live up to the expression "everything is bigger in Texas."
But the couple is fairly new to the longhorn, only acquiring their first head in 2017, inspired by Mr Jones interest in the North American wild west era and culture.
"We always loved the wild west and the Texan longhorned cattle," he said.
"Some became available, they were some ex-roping stock, so it all started from there with a few roping cows.
"It's blown into a fair sort of passion now."
The Texas longhorn have a long and interesting history said Mr Jones, with the breed originating in Spain and their ancestors reported as being shipped with Christopher Columbus in 1493 to the island of Santa Domingo in the Caribbean, before being exported to Mexico.
"The breed came out of Spain and then they were taken to Mexico, and then they went feral for a while and travelled about North America.
"Then the Americans took them on in the wild west 1900s and they started breeding them towards having the big horn, while the Canadians were breeding towards meat."
He said this history showed how resilient and successful the breed is at adapting to new environments and they also have high fertility, live birth percentages, temperament and are disease and parasite resistant with a good look to them.
"They have got a really good temperament," he said.
"The fertility is very high with them, they are good cattle to work in the yard and the colour array, well there is just no end to it.
"They are hardy as far as ticks and worms are concerned and they have built up a great resilience to parasites, and are quick to adapt."
The couple run their herd of more than 60 longhorns across several paddocks and focus on providing quality meat by keeping the cattle fed on natural pasture and free of antibiotics and growth hormones.
"They are all grass fed," he said.
"The animals we are processing are 4-year-old steers and we take all the primal cuts, rib fillet, eye fillet, rump, and the rest goes into trim, mince, sausages and we also do meat pies.
"There is a lot of flavour in the meat being four-year grass fed and it's lean and low in cholesterol, it's a healthy low saturated fat, the tenderness is there being they are a placid, gentle animal.
With a strong focus on the paddock to plate ethos and selling through the local butcher that processes the cattle, they also cater for private orders and aim to use has much of the carcass as possible with Mr Jones polishing the horns and skulls for mounting.
The couple will continue to work at improving their herd using genetics while aiming for the all important long horn that makes the breed stand out.
"Horn is a big thing and we have a few we will let live out their life to focus on that horn growth," he said.
"You can breed horn genetics which we are starting to understand, so we keep a couple of steers every year that we believe are going to grow into good horn.
"I believe the record is an American steer with 11 feet six inches (350 cm)," he said
"We have one fella and he is just over 9 feet (274 cm) and he is 8-year-old."
Texas Longhorn Australia Inc. host an online tip-to-tip horn competition and hold an annual show and sale in Scone, New South Wales.
Wayne and Melinda Jones will display their Waratah Texas Longhorns at the Mt Perry Show April 16, 2023.
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