For years, Cheyenne rancher Jeff Ketcham admired longhorn cattle at stock shows around the West.
“They’re just a majestic animal,” he said.
With diverse coat colors and spectacular horns that can span more than 8 feet from tip to tip, they are a marvel to look at.
They also are known for their longevity and their ease and reliability of calving.
Ketcham built a herd of his own longhorn around a cow named Sweetheart, which is something of a legacy on Ketcham’s 100-acre Walkin’ K Ranch east of Cheyenne.
On Monday, she gave birth to her 20th calf, keeping intact a streak of consistently producing at least one calf a year for Ketcham for the past 20 years.
In 2020, Sweetheart gave Ketcham a bonus — twins.
Getting Started
After years of seeing the longhorns at stock shows, Ketcham finally decided to take the plunge in 2006. He bought four longhorn heifers at a sale in Colorado.
“I’ve always liked them,” Ketcham said of the breed. “They have great dispositions. They’re easy to handle.”
One of those heifers had a heart-shaped tuft of hair right in the middle of her forehead. It earned her the name Sweetheart.
“She fits that disposition,” Ketcham told Cowboy State Daily. “She fits that name pretty well.”
The longhorns joined Ketcham’s herd of Herefords and black-white-face cattle (a cross between Angus and Hereford).
The longhorns’ reliable birthing rates helped Ketcham fall into a predictable routine: He raises the calves, and at the end of each summer sells the females to longhorn breeders around the country.
He sells the male calves for meat.
The Dream Cow
Heifers are reliable, and it’s common for female cows to give birth to calves every year.
But most cattle breeds are not as hardy as longhorns. Angus and Herefords typically have calves for streaks of eight or nine years, Ketcham said.
When it comes to longhorns, “longevity is in their genes,” Ketcham said. “They’re just a real hardy breed.”
Not only are they hearty, they are independent. Two of the four longhorn heifers Ketcham bought 20 years ago still roam his Walkin’ K Ranch — Sweetheart and Buttons.
“I’ve never had to pull a calf,” he said of how reliable they are at calving. “I’ve never had to doctor either one of them.”
According to The Cattle Site, the Texas longhorn is the only breed of cattle in America that has adapted to America without human aid — all through natural processes.
It is not out of the question for heifers to conceive while still nursing their mother. A heifer can produce a living calf without assistance before she is 16 months old.
Sharing the Dream
Ketcham said there’s a different niche market for longhorns compared to other breeds of cattle because of these desirable traits.
He has encouraged others in Laramie County to explore the longhorn cattle business.
“They’re a lot of fun to raise,” he said.
One of the Laramie County residents who now raises longhorn cattle in part because of Ketcham is Jim Canterbury.
“All my cows and all my bloodlines and all my bulls have come from Jeff,” Canterbury told Cowboy State Daily.
One of them was “this pretty little tri-colored heifer girl,” Canterbury said. “Jeff called her little baby pretty girl. Her name is now Hag.
“She has the biggest rack of horns on her that you can imagine,” Canterbury said. “They’re beautiful.”
Ketcham recently sold Canterbury a baby longhorn bull named Moe.
“He’s got the same IQ as a grasshopper,” Canterbury said.
Now, Canterbury is waiting on “three big mamas” to calve. Two of those mamas will give birth to their first calves this year.
Canterbury has been raising longhorn cattle since about 2010.
He and Ketcham go way back: their families are so entwined that Canterbury said he could not remember when he and Ketcham actually met.
Summer Sale Time
In the summers, Ketcham drives his cattle to the big water tanks behind Cheyenne’s Frontier Mall.
“People just love them,” he said. “They stop and take pictures of them.”
A few people have asked if they could do paintings of his bull.
Ketcham has learned through experience that the longhorns’ summers behind the mall make for excellent marketing, because people see them. The cows are always sold by the end of the summer.
Canterbury said he runs his few little girls up there sometimes too, when the grass is really good.
“They’re real gentle,” said Ketcham, “easy keepers.”
Given the nature of the breed and her clockwork reliability, there’s no reason to think Sweetheart won’t continue her calf streak to 21 years.
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
