Orchestra at square dance in McIntosh County, Oklahoma   photo by Russell Lee

The original “Texas System” of cattle ranching, which was characterized by allowing cattle to range year-round unattended by people, was developed in South Eastern Texas in the 1800’s when the Carolinian influenced Louisiana French moved into the Texas Gulf coast area and adopted the Mexican Tejano traditions necessary for adaptation to the open grasslands.

Mexican Influence

Terms:  lariat, corral, remuda, tank

Sombrero, horned saddle and stirrups

Equestrian skills and roping

Carolinian Influence

Terms: doggie, cow hunt, pen, and cowboy

Use of whips

Involvement of wealthy outside entrepreneurs

Disregard for sheep raising

Driving cattle on extensive routes to market

Use of cattle for beef

Letting the cattle range without attention to their conditions

The Texas ranching system truly began in about 1838 when cowboys began going out from the gulf coast region and rounding up wild cattle from the first herds brought over by the Spanish Missionaries in the 1690’s.  By 1838, the wild cattle from these herds numbered in the millions.  The Texas Longhorns were rounded up once in the fall and once in the spring on “cattle hunts”.  They were branded and put in cattle pens, to be driven up to markets in New Orleans on established coastal trails.  By the 1850’s they began driving cattle to markets in Illinois and Missouri.  

 During the Civil War many of these cowboys left Texas to take up their part in the fighting.  The cattle industry there also stagnated, as the Union army put strong restrictions on the cattle trade with the North, and cattlemen turned to other industries such as cotton for survival.  Over that four-year period, the abandoned cattle multiplied and war veterans returned to a Texas teeming with unbranded, ownerless cattle.

The famous open range cattle drives pushed these wild Texas cattle north on trails with now legendary names, such as the Shawnee, Chisholm, Western, and Goodnight-Loving, to newly laid railroad track ready to ship them to hungry Northerners, whose herds had been depleted feeding soldiers in the war.  Texas cattle also found new homes in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico where beef was needed to feed the great influx of miners. Between 1866 and 1884 it is estimated that five million cows were driven north from Texas.  

By the 1880’s, Texas grasslands became overstocked and overgrazed.  Thousands of cattle died from the marginal grazing conditions, quickly depleting the great cattle frontier of Texas.

 Modern day western grass-fed ranching has its roots the Texas system.  Cows were fattened well on grass as long as the ranges were managed properly and overstocking could be avoided.   To run a successful grass-fed operation, rotational grazing and adequate livestock management are key.  Grass-fed practices also put an emphasis on human treatment of animals, which was absent in the use of whips, cattle wrestling, free grazing, and uncontrolled herd expansion, and an lack of tradition for shelter and summer/winter pastures.  These modern methods developed in the West as it became clear that in order for the cattle business to survive, more adequate attention to the cattle was required.  Now, industrialized CAFO’s have taken this care to the other extreme, controlling the cattle beyond what is instinctually natural.  Good Grass-fed practices, as they are still developing are the middle of these two extremes, and serves to keep the old cowboy culture alive, while making the business sustainable for the land and the animals.