Cattle breeds can sound like foreign terms to those outside of rural Australia, but even city slickers can recognise the uniqueness of the increasingly popular Texas longhorn.
The American cattle breed is popping up in paddocks across Australia both in small numbers as "paddock art" and in herds, as primary producers seek to enhance the health qualities of their beef.
Brigalow Longhorns Texas Longhorn Stud owners Wes and Hayley Offord said they became "addicted" to the breed as soon as they brought their first 13 to their property near Rockhampton.
"It was the babies, as soon as the babies started to be born, you just get a different colour every time [and] you just become addicted to them," Ms Offord said.
Within 12 months of buying their first longhorn cattle, the couple sold the majority of their red brahman cattle at their Marmor property to focus on the American breed.
"You're not getting a red calf like you were before and that was exciting to me," Ms Offord said.
Not just a pretty sight
Texas Longhorn Enterprises claim longhorn cattle produce very lean beef that contains less fat and cholesterol than some other popular sources of protein, such as pork and chicken.
But Mr Offord said, while the health benefits of longhorn beef were not widely known, there was an increasing demand for the cuts.
"We only do one a month at this stage [because] there's probably not enough longhorns in Australia to market them to be like a boutique-type meat to supply to a restaurant," Mr Offord said.
"Everyone who tries it loves it.
"Sometimes it's a meat that doesn't look like your normal conventional meats, but it's very tender and very good for you as well."
The horns of the distinctive breed can grow to more than a metre on each side of the skull, creating added challenges for meat processing.
"A lot of the bigger meatworks obviously will not take horned cattle anymore, so I know that's an issue with a few of the bigger producers with longhorns," he said.
The Offords pay an independent butcher in Monto to process their cattle, but the beef is just one of the products sourced from the animal.
"He keeps the hides for us, and we get them tanned in Ballarat and we do the skulls as well so there's no waste, they're a rounded package," Ms Offord said.
Introducing paddock art
While cattle are normally bred for meat, Mr Offord said most of their Texas longhorns were sold as "paddock art" — the practice of buying unusual or interesting breeds for their aesthetic value.
"People just love them, and we love selling to people knowing that they're not going to get eaten either and knowing they'll have a great life," he said.
Texas Longhorns Australia president Rodney Cooper said paddock art was also a big market for his stud, located in Scone.
"When we started our association 10 years or so ago, there weren't many full bloods in Australia, but people are investing more money and know what they're looking for," Mr Cooper said.
Texas Longhorns Australia registrar Dan Lamb said the breed was growing in popularity, but it was difficult to quantify as owners were not required to register their cattle.
No easy or cheap task
Texas longhorn cattle are registered as an at-risk breed on the Rare Breeds Trust of Australia and, because it is illegal to import live cattle into Australia, improving genetics is a costly exercise.
The Offords have purchased both a bull and a heifer as part of a partnership to collect semen and embryos to import to Australia.
