WALLOWA, Ore. — You don’t have to be in Texas — or even be a Texan — to raise Texas longhorns.

Jeremy McCulloch said he and his family have the largest herd of registered Texas longhorns west of Texas, and certainly in Oregon.

The Wallowa High School history teacher runs about 450 of the unique breed on his operation, the Rocking M Cattle Co., outside Wallowa. This year, McCulloch stepped down from his 15-year position as agriculture teacher and FFA advisor at the school to devote more time to the ranch.

“I set up the (FFA) program at the school and it was time to step back,” he said.

The ranch

The ranch consists of several pastures around Wallowa, as well as leased grazing land along Highway 82 outside town where the cattle spend the summer, and federal land in Western Montana, where they have a grazing allotment. The McCullochs truck them to the home ranch for winter.

McCulloch’s business partner, his uncle Donald McCulloch, lives on the main ranch with Donald’s mother. McCulloch’s son, Ricky, who is almost 12, spends summers on the ranch and helps out as well as raising some of his own cattle. McCulloch’s fiancee, Elizabeth Whitman, who has a background in marketing, applies her skill to selling the ranch’s products.

McCulloch said his grandparents started ranching near Sandy in the 1970s. They moved to Wallowa County by the 1980s and switched to longhorns in 2008.

“They were looking for a specialized market and always liked longhorns,” he said.

They also grow much of their own feed, as many ranchers do.

“We grow alfalfa and orchard grass, and green hay and oats in rotation,” he said. “This is kind of a value-added deal with the idea to control our own marketing.”

The breed

Longhorns originated in Spain and the first of their ancestors arrived on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with one of the Christopher Columbus expeditions in the late 1400s. Over the next two centuries, the Spanish moved the cattle north and west into what would become Mexico and then Texas.

Longhorns now are in Northern Mexico, Utah, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, as well as in Oregon. The breed did some wild crossbreeding before it developed into a stable breed of domestic stock.

McCulloch said the breed’s most unique feature, of course, is its extremely long horns. They range from 70 inches to more than 100 inches.

The heifers tend to have longer, more spiraled horns, while the bulls have horns that are thicker at the base. One of McCulloch’scows — an older one — broke off part of her left horn, but much of it has grown back out, though the damage is evident. That cow is about 20 years old, the approximate life expectancy for longhorns.

“We measure them once a year,” McCulloch said.

The herd now boasts several with horns spreading more than 90 inches and a couple maxing out around 100 inches.

Animals with such long, seemingly threatening skewers extending from their heads might raise the question of how dangerous they are. But the cattle generally are good toward each other and to people and horses used to work them.

“You’ve got to be respectful of the horns when you’re working them,” he said. “But we have a zero-tolerance policy for aggression.”

McCulloch said he wants the cattle to all have good dispositions. If one gets too aggressive toward people or other animals, they go right to the sale truck.

“If something happens, it’s on the next truck out,” he said. “If there’s some skittishness or they’re flighty, we’ll give them some time to get over that and hopefully the herd mentality will take over. But I don’t want 400 pets.”

McCulloch said the heifers are watched to see when they stop bearing calves. The ranch keeps five bulls for breeding purposes at any one time. Breeding is done both through artificial insemination and the natural process.

He said he has one bull valued at about $40,000 simply because of its worth in breeding. The ranch sells semen from the bulls, as well.

Longhorn byproducts

The meat is the most valuable and popular byproduct from the longhorns. McCulloch said the meat tastes great.

“It’s a heart-healthy beef. It doesn’t have as much fat so you want to cook it slower,” he said. “The flavor’s exceptional, particularly the ground beef and our smoked products are super-popular. We do some custom finishing on grain, but most customers these days want grass-fed products.”

The ranch sells whole beeves, halves, individual cuts and value packs, as well as smoked products around the county. The Rocking M uses a U.S. Department of Agriculture processor in Clarkston, Washington, that allows for the ranch to retrieve all the skulls.

Steers are considered mature and ready for slaughter at about 1,000-1,100 pounds with at least 70 inches of horn.

The horns and skulls are another popular byproduct, selling at $500-$1,500 each. Of course, the more exotic ones bring a higher price. And the ranch makes sure the skulls and horns are properly treated. The ranch uses a taxidermist who uses a type of beetle to clean the skulls.

“We keep every skull,” he said. “We have at least 60 at the taxidermist right now getting whitened and bleached. We sell them at the Pendleton Round-Up and Chief Joseph Days. The skulls are a big hit.”

The hides, too, can be popular to sell, as they come in a variety of colors and patterns — black, white, red, speckled and brindle. Red and white are dominant, as are a couple of the brindle genes. Brindle is a brownish or tawny color of animal fur, with streaks of other colors.

“Brindle comes out of what they call the ‘wild gene’ from the Southwest,” McCulloch said.

One brindle cow recently had twin calves — a bull and a heifer. He said it’s common with such twins for the bull to be fertile but the heifer to be infertile.

Another cow is pregnant with her 16th calf, which will be born in the spring.

“She just had a nice bull calf at age 17,” McCulloch said.

Ranch tours

The Rocking M gives tours of the ranch. Details are available on the website, but the prices still reflect the 2020 prices.

McCulloch said those prices will be updated before tours resume in the spring. The tours are from May through September on Saturdays, Sundays and by appointment. He said the tours are popular among photographers.

One or more of the McCulloch family members guide the tours, and the guests have an opportunity to see all of the cattle. The tours last between 30 minutes and an hour, with guests encouraged to take as many pictures as they choose.

Guests will get to see cows, calves, steers and of course breeding bulls on their summer pastures.

What: Registered Texas longhorns

Who: Jeremy and Don McCulloch

Where: 70210 Warnock Road, Wallowa

Phone: 541-805-9985

Email: jeremy.mcculloch1@gmail.com

Online: www.rockingmcattleco.com