Texas Longhorn Cattle Horns: A Simple Tip to Avoid a Common Mistake

How to avoid a common mistake with Texas longhorn cattle horns: ONE simple tip to twist your thinking, so to speak

Longhorns are a dime a dozen these days- yes, long horns that is.

Tip to tip measurements are all the rage. Until of course, real old time twisters become the subject of conversation. It’s true, those old time twisters are more challenging to come by. However, you may be surprised to know that twisty horns develop slowly. In fact unlike the heavy based wide horn spread, where the initial horn growth happens in the first few years of a Texas longhorn cow’s life, those spectacular twists evolve a lot later than many would imagine.

 

 

How quickly do longhorn horns grow?

A Texas longhorn cow’s horns will grow more rapidly in the first few years of life. By two years of age a longhorn cow has generally reached over 50% of her horn growth. Although her horns will continue to grow through out her life they will grow fastest in those first four to five years.

So, if your young heifer checks all the boxes with regard to body confirmation, temperament and color, horn shape, etc., you would think that making a decision on whether or not to keep a heifer to enhance your herd would be easy done at around two years of age.

In other words, if Texas longhorn cattle horn measurement’s from one tip to the other are around 60” or more at age 2, that’s a good indication that they will have a horn set to be proud of, right?

With GVR Dusty, it absolutely was the case.

 

 

Dusty is a 4th generation cow born on our ranch. Her mother has a tight twist in her horns. We bred her with our Top Caliber bull M Arrow High Caliber and got this result – a rolling twist with a wider horn spread.

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Here is where it gets tricky.

To illustrate, many Texas longhorn breeders  discard their young longhorn cows at two years of age if their horn measurements don’t match the current trends.

And that’s to be expected! After all, high dollar cows have consistently high measurements. Nonetheless if you love a good looking Texas longhorn but cannot afford a hefty price tag, and even if you can, there is one consideration worth the time.

What we have observed, with our own herd and within the Texas longhorn industry is that ‘corkscrew’ twists or similar tighter twists develop over time and often over a longer period than one would expect.

Here’s a graphic example-

let’s take our older cow Jasmine Blossom…….

 

 

At 20 months of age, Jasmine Blossom had a desirable body conformation and nice color. As you can see, her horns at two years of age did not conform to todays current trends of a lot of horn and a wide horn spread.

 

Jasmine Blossom’s genetic history is solid  but even at three years of age and several years after, Jasmine Blossom’s horns did not stick out, so to speak!

In the case of Jasmine Blossom, her horns developed a third twist late in her life, in her 11th year.

 

 

We still see some change in Jasmine Blossom’s horns, not necessarily in her TTT measurement but in the twist and shape of her horn set. She is 13 years old now. Who knows, she may continue to grow and she may not. She certainly does not have the most spectacular twist but we really do like her horn set and judging from feedback from our visitors we know her Texas longhorn cattle horns stand out  in our pastures.