Gentle feeding . . . George Slayton, (foreground) general manager of the Texas Longhorn Cooperative helps Gregg Kirkpatrick feed his Longhorn cattle in Palmer. Slayton, who helped initiate the new cattle group, said he enjoys Longhorns because they are social creatures who actually like people.
-- Staff photo by Kyle Pendergraft
Bred from the past, raised for the future
By Kyle Pendergraft, Country World staff writer
Oct. 4, 2007 - RICE — The Texas Longhorn Cooperative, as a group, is in full support of its namesake. Some cooperative organizations are formed to supply members with feed, fertilizer, farm supplies, utilities, and other goods and services, the goal being to cut costs by buying products in bulk. TLC is a group representing one thing: Longhorns.
“I got into Longhorns on kind of a fluke, mostly because having one made my place ag-exempt,” said George Slayton, general manager of the Texas Longhorn Association. “Then one night it jumped the fence, got out, and started up some trouble and I decided to just sell it off. I took it to auction and got about 29 cents on the pound. That was just... unbelievable. Something had to be done about that. So I started talking to people and we started getting together, started getting organized, with this idea of creating a means to make some fair profit.”
Five families in the Rice area — George and Cindy Rotollo, Gregg and Cindy Kirkpatrick, Van and Julia Carter, Don and Betty Woods, and George and Tristine Slayton — organized the TLC with the mission statement to provide low fat, hormone free, grass-fed Longhorn beef raised by independent producers, where those producers would reap the rewards for their stock without a middleman.
“Longhorns are a remarkable animal because of all the means you can make a profit on them,” said Slayton. “With most cattle, the main thing is beef. With Longhorns, though, you can sell beef, hides, horns, skulls, head mounts. There’s a lot to be had there.”
And, Slayton readily points out, the benefits of Longhorn meat for the consumer outweighs those of other cattle breeds, as well. Longhorn beef is low in cholesterol, low in fat, and has fewer calories than white meat chicken.
“There’s been a wave in recent years of people really going after healthier foods,” said Slayton. “The average consumer nowadays wants good taste and consistency and quality but they want lean, heart healthy meat with less fat and calories just as much. It used to be in the Longhorn business that you just couldn’t stay afloat because you could only produce so much and the buying public wanted variety. One person can’t produce that kind of supply, but a thousand can. When you have a large group in a cooperative they can supply the growing demand out there for healthy protein and then still have hides and horns and things like that to bring in even more profit.”
Though the main emphasis is providing increased revenue for the producers involved, the TLC itself is non-profit, the percentage taken from members’ profits going towards paying for the services the cooperative provides. The cooperative exists for its members to make money and to promote the Longhorn breed. Things like his salary, Slayton said, aren’t anywhere close to being a priority.
“The whole point of what we’re doing is to make it easy for the Longhorn producer to get his crop to market,” said Slayton. “As an industry, we’ve been hung up for way too long on doing things the easiest way possible, whatever would make money, and now South American cattle producers are starting to take more and more of the marketplace from American producers. If we don’t do something now, in 10 years the market could be completely dominated by South America.”
“There is a market for our Longhorns,” Slayton went on. “These animals have a lot more to offer the public than what most people believe. The market’s been run by cattle producers who were against Longhorns for so long that it’s taking some time and effort to make people believe that Longhorns can deliver what we say. But the people I’ve spoken to and worked with, even at the state level, are genuinely interested in and excited by the possibilities Longhorns could bring to the meat market.”
The Texas Longhorn Cooperative was formally approved by the State of Texas on March 13, 2007. They have a tax ID number, a D&B number, slaughterhouse approval by USDA, product liability insurance, and label approval. They are, however, always looking for new members who can supply grass-fed, hormone and antibiotic free Longhorn cattle.
For more information about the Texas Longhorn Cooperative visit http://txlonghorncoop.org/.
