TL Cattle
Our cowherd originated from Red Angus, Hereford, and Red Baldy cattle. When we moved back to the family ranch in 2000, we were given the pick of five head from John “Tanky” Doherty’s (Dan’s Granddad’s) herd, as well as the option to buy five head from the Horseshoe Ranch herd belonging to Tanky’s brother, W. O. Doherty. In 2008, John J. Doherty and Sons decided to disperse their herd after W. O. passed away. We bought all of the purebred Hereford cattle from this herd and a fantastic set of Red Baldy cows.
With a solid base of cows from two of the premier cattle breeders in this area, we set off to put our own stamp on the cattle industry. We inherited the TL brand (the original Owen family brand) in 2006. We now had a cow herd worthy of this historic family brand. In 2008, we began to lease country of our own in addition to using land owned by Doherty Ranches Inc., which is Dan’s family’s cattle operation.
In 2010, after working for Tanky and W. O.’s cousin, Dan Doherty, for three years, Uncle Dan decided to sell us his herd of cows on the Grande ranch outside Des Moines, New Mexico, and lease us that ranch. These cows were deep-bodied meat wagons; there is no other way to describe them. While not as flashy or “pretty” as our original herd, these D-bar cows from Uncle Dan added the capacity and muscle to really make our calves stand out! About half of the D-bar herd were black cows, so Dan had to back off his “red is always better” attitude because these black cows are amazing. We are slowly trying to return our herd to all red for consistency purposes and have bought Buffalo Creek, Beckton, and Mushrush bulls to help us do this, along with an extensive A.I. program. We began to grow our ranch and have been able to lease and purchase additional land over the years.
We ask a lot of our cows; we only get around 17 inches of moisture in a good year, so these cows must survive on pretty short grass. Even though our grass is short, the blue gramma and western wheat that we grow pack a powerful punch; look at the body condition of our cows. Our elevation ranges from 6000 feet in Trinchera, Colorado, to 8700 feet on the top of Sierra Grande near Des Moines, New Mexico, so our cattle must prove they can live and perform at higher elevations. Winters are not easy in our area, where brutal winter storms can dump several feet of snow on us without warning. Our cows learn to paw through snow because we don’t feed hay unless there is more than a foot of snow. We develop our own heifer and bull calves out on the range on cake, grass, hay (during deep snow), clean water, and fresh air. Lower-performing calves sort themselves out in a hurry in this environment.
We strive for an easy-doing, gentle, and productive animal that can make it on her own. Our perfect cow is a 1200-pound Red Baldy cow that can raise 50% of her body weight while maintaining a 5 to 6 BCS with minimal winter supplement. We are heading toward breeding all our red cows to Hereford bulls and all our white-faced cows to Red Angus bulls to give us a cow that works for us.