Texas Longhorn (CTLR)

This is the conservation bloodline registered by the Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Registry, not the commercial Longhorn most people picture. The distinction matters when you buy. Much of the modern Longhorn population has been selected hard for horn length and show type. The CTLR line is kept for the original range animal.

The breed descends from Spanish cattle that came north with missionaries in the 1700s and 1800s, off open-range stock that had run in southwestern Spain since the Middle Ages. Cattle management stopped during the Civil War and the herds went feral, which is how the Longhorn became the only North American breed shaped mostly by survival rather than by breeders. The trail drives after the war made it famous.

Improved British, European and Indian breeds pushed it aside in the 1900s and it nearly went out.

What you get is an efficient range animal: long-lived, fertile, and able to work across a wide temperature range on forage other cattle refuse. Check which registry an animal is recorded with before you bid, because the two populations are not interchangeable.