Seth Locke is a Texas Longhorn breeder from Bristow, Oklahoma whose animals are exhibited at the Cattlemen’s Congress in Oklahoma City. He and Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays discussed the breed and marketing avenues for breeders.
Locke has been raising longhorns for about 12 years mainly because he finds them fascinating. “We have three categories of selling longhorns,” Locke shared. “We have people who want yard ornaments, so they like the color of their hides because they come in every color – brindle, brown, black, white, gray, and gruellas which are the hardest to produce.”
Another category is animals for show, and industry which is broken up into two different areas of focus: horns and beef production. Locke said that his animals focus more on beef, conformation, and structure but have adequate horns as well.
“At a lot of the horn shows, you will have breeder judges, and at a lot of the beef shows that we go to, you will have your academic judges,” he explained. “Cattlemen’s Congress is now the largest beef expo in the world. It is a big platform for us to be on.”
Longhorns have been exhibited at the Cattlemen’s Congress since its second year. In the early days, Locke said that their longhorns were viewed as oddities, however, nowadays, the judges are speaking highly of the longhorns – both bulls and females. Longhorns becoming an accepted breed at Congress has helped Longhorn shows and breeders everywhere raise the bar.
The last marketing category for Longhorns is beef. Longhorns produce the leanest beef available, and Locke shared that butchers sometimes have to add fat so the longhorn beef will stick together.
“There are a lot of Longhorn breeders in Oklahoma and Texas who have partnered with a lot of beef outlets to market their hamburger meat because that is the key,” Locke said. “The steaks are good, too, but the hamburger is what everyone is after because you can do so much with hamburger. It is so lean and so much more nutritious and healthier for you. When you cook a Longhorn hamburger, it doesn’t shrink up.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
