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PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. Thank you! TheTexasPanhandle was hot, humid, green, clean, no graffiti or trash. Their four lane highways were 75 mph, with no traf- fic. Great ranching fami- lies, delightful ranch chil- dren with "yes ma'am","no sir." Beautiful horses, pro- ductive cattle, cutting edge technology and wonderful hosts. Kendra and I were in Texas for the Western Live- stock Journal Texas "Leg- acy" Ranch Tour with friends from California, Oregon, Washington, Ar- izona, Idaho, Utah, Mon- tana, Nevada, Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Min- nesota and Connecticut. Also on the tour from Northern California were Arlene Dierksen, Cotton- wood; Del and Holly Re- imers, Orland; Louis Ven- turini, Chico; Norma Hap- good, Lake City; Michol Ann Jervan, Montague; Laurel Marsters, Janes- ville; Ray Page, Cedarville; Midge Swickard, Susan- ville; Katherine Zandstra, Lake City; Bruce & Connie Martin, Santa Rosa. Everyone had adven- tures if they flew into Dal- las enroute to Lubbock, be- cause of the storms. Our connecting plane from Houston to Dallas was de- layed an hour, being lucky it wasn't cancelled. Most cancellations were to East Coast or Texas airports. Some were delayed seven hours in Dallas, getting in at midnight. Our first visit was to Matador Ranch, Mata- dor, Texas, an hour and half north-east of Lub- bock. We noticed the dou- ble cropped corn was about a foot tall, with pivot irri- gation in the farming coun- try. Most pivots had six sec- tions but I did count ten on one. Norma counted eight different pivots in one view from the bus. Lots of wild flowers in bloom, but no one knew the names. White River was a disappointment, since it was just a trickle of water. In a previous WLJ Tour we had visited the Matador Cattle Company's - Beaver- head Ranch in Montana. On this visit to the Matador Cattle Company's - Mata- dor Ranch in Texas it fea- tured working registered Quarter Horses, cattle and hunting. Bob Kilmer is the ranch manager, with James Palmer who works with Matador Cattle Com- pany's compliance & safety. Tim Washington is the lead camp man for the Mata- dor Ranch and oversees the horse program, Les Wool- sey is the hunting manager and oversees the ranch hunting program as well as the EH&S program for the Matador Ranch, and Kim Woolsey is the coordinator for the hunting lodge. In the mid-1800s H.H. Campbell started the ranch. He needed cash, and five men each put in $10,000, and the horses still wear the 50 brand in memory of the $50,000. In December 1882, the Matador Land and Cattle Company was formed by Scottish investors who as- sumed the Texas ranching operations for $1.25 mil- lion. The acquisition in- cluded about 1.5 million acres in Motley, Floyd, Dickens, Crosby and Cottle counties. In 1951, the com- pany, which then owned about 800,000 acres, was sold to Lazard Freres and Company of London for $18.9 million. Upon its purchase from the Scots, Lazard Freres sub-divided the land for sale. On Oct. 3, 1952, Fred C. Koch, co-founder of what has become Koch Indus- tries, Inc., formed Mata- dor Cattle Company. Later, a company owned by Koch acquired three parcels of the Texas-based Matador Ranch, which was joined with other Koch-operated ranches in Montana and Kansas totaling approx- imately 130,000 deeded acres. Matador Cattle Company now has 460,000 acres, with approximately 12,000 cattle on the three ranches. Currently there are about 3,700 head of cows on the Matador Ranch, but were turned out on the large pastures and we only saw a small group of pur- chased cows with calves. They figure 30 acres to a cow. The calves are weaned for 45 days and sold, in- stead of selling as year- lings. They use the Zoetis vaccination program. Matador has a black- baldie cowherd, using An- gus and Hereford bulls in rotation. They want a mod- erate framed female, with low birthweight. Until mid 1980s it was Herefords ex- clusively. Charolaise are a terminal cross. In Texas they calve out- doors, but use a barn in Montana. In 2011, they had 100 days of over 100 degrees, and at the peak of the heat wave had a surface tem- perature of 123 degrees at one point. In 2011, at the start of the severe drought, 20,000 acres burned in less than 48 hours. Anything wood burned, and only brick or block buildings re- mained. The ranch destocked close to 50% of the cattle. A couple of times during the week we heard "when it stops raining, you know it's start of drought." May 2015, it started raining, and last summer they started to re- stock the ranch. We drove out in a mes- quite pasture to view a group of mares with foals. They came up when the "cake wagon" arrived. This group had a red roan stal- lion that was a son of Boon- light Dancer and out of Grays Starlight mare. The cutting industry thought he was too big for cutting, but for Matador he was the right size to sire good solid ranch horses. Everyone was com- menting that the mares had muscle, bone and size. There are 160 horses on the ranch — mares, foals, year- lings and saddle horses combined, with three stal- lion groups in different pastures. There were 27 foals, 36 registered AQHA mares, and they figure five to 10 saddle horses per cowboy. All the mares are ridden as a 2 year old, and if she has a good disposition she will be kept. Geldings and mares are used to work cattle, roping at branding. They pasture breed their mares. The mare number is on left rump; age brand is on left shoulder; stallion number is on right rump. Branding and vaccinating at weaning. Everything is for sale, and they will sell the horses at weaning or even solid ranch geldings that are 8 to 10 years of age. Ranch horses sell starting at $1,000 and up depen- dent on whether you buy a weaned colt or a solid team roping horse. Les Woolsey told us about the hunting program that started in 1994/95, with the beautiful lodge built in 2008. The drought was hard on the quail, and finally got a good hatch this year. "If Mother Nature helps, the quail come back." Today the ranch offers hunting leases for both deer and quail. The guided hunts are reserved for in- tercompany customers. Each year the ranch per- forms a flight survey uti- lizing a wildlife biologist to determine wildlife num- bers — particurlarly deer numbers. This gives them a buck to doe ration and this determines the number of animals that are taken. A delicious lunch was enjoyed at the lodge, with tender barbecued brisket, ranch pinto beans, potato salad, pickles, white bread and butter, cherry or apple cobbler with ice tea, sweet tea or coffee and water. Our next visit was to Texas Tech University Bur- nett Center, New Deal, Texas, and that was a dis- appointment. It was com- pleted in 1984 and not kept up. The feed lot needed a shade cover. It was a burn- ing sun, high 90s with 66% humidity, 91 degrees in the shade. Cull cows are purchased at auction yard, and feed- ing them wheat bran with 55% moisture, steam flaked corn, and ground cotton burs, a byproduct of the cotton gin, to increase their weight and yield grade. However, didn't know the cost per pound of gain, etc. Then the experiment of calving in a feedlot con- finement showed what all ranchers already knew. There was a heavy death loss of calves in a dirty en- vironment, 15%. The con- trol out on pasture had only one-half percent death loss. Too hot for me to visit the feed mill, but heard that it was as disappoint- ing as the feedlot. JeanBartonhasbeen writing her column in the Daily News since the early 1990s. She can be reached by e-mail at jbarton2013@ gmail.com. JEANBARTON Western Livestock Journal Texas 'Legacy' Ranch Tour ANGUS ASSOCIATION BryceBorror Bryce Borror, of Gerber, represented California at the 2016 Beef Leaders In- stitute June 20-24 in Saint Joseph, Missouri. The institute is de- signed to cultivate leaders in the beef industry while enhancing understand- ing of the total beef pro- duction system. This is the ninth year for BLI, spon- sored by the Angus Foun- dation. Twenty American An- gus Association members recently traveled five days across the U.S. for an in- depth beef industry tour. Looking to further their knowledge and education, the cattlemen and women experienced a whirlwind week developing relation- ships and exploring all as- pects of beef production, from the feedlot to the consumer. The Angus Founda- tion-sponsored event was hosted June 20-24 and started at the Asso- ciation's headquarters in Saint Joseph, Mo. 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