The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1894-12-29
A BUFFALO RANCH.
An Experiment in Bison Breeding
in the Texas Panhandle.
The Unique Enterprise Of an Old Plains
man Who Ia Striving to Perpetuats
the Valuable Qualities Of an
Almost Extinct Animal

Goodnight, a little station on the /
Fort Worth and Denver City rail
road, in Armstrong county, in the I
Texas Panhandle, is the home OF I
Charles Goodnight, who is quietly but /
earnestly and persistently conducting
an experiment in the crossing of the
American buffalo with native cattle, SO
far without completely successful re-
suits, but certainly with very inter-
esting ones
Mr.. Goodnight, says Forest and Stream
has little home ranch of about seventy
Thousand acres. This is his garden
His real ranch, where he does business,
is the Quitaque, some distance away,
where he has about four hundred thou
sand acres under fence. 1t is at his lit
tie garden, or truck patch, tina. he has
his buffalo experimental station
Several years ago, when buffaloes
were more plentiful in Texas than
they are now, the cowboys working for
Mr.. Goodnight would often ''rope"
buffalo calf and bring it hcme. These
were turned into an inclosure, and.
though little attention was paid to
them, they formed the nucleus of the
herd now on the ranch As the wild
buffalo began to disappear these be-
+ came of greater interest, and six or
seven years ago Mr.. Goodnight began
in earnest the attempt to produce q
new and distinct breed by crossing
buffalo and neat cattle, and trying to
perpetuate this type of inbreedin2-
There are now on his ranch about
twenty-five or thirty full-blood buffa-
loes and as many more half-breeds- Most
of these ulI-bloods-probably all OF
them were calged on the ranch. n
deed, the herd are the product of the
calves roped and brought in by the
cowboys in the late '70s, which grew
up and multiplied by the regular and
natural process They are fne-looking
animals Old buffalo hunters say they
never saw finer-loolling ones when these
animals covered the Texas prairies by
millions, which is conclusive evidence
that civilization is no. fatal 70 tbs
propagation of the buffalo. He need:
only to be protected and given fail
show, and in time there is no reason
why there should not be as man,
buffaloes on the prairies of Texas a
there were twenty years ago.
The crosses are, however, Of thi
greatest interest. 1t was Mr. Good
nights desire TO establi=h a type Q
cattle with the valuable robe, tn
thrifty rustling qualities, the weigh
and general characteristics of th
buffalo. He has bred "blacIs mulleys
to the buffalo bulls-the cattle bein
chiefly polled AnguS-and the result
an animal with the light hindquartar
and heavy shoulders OF the buffalo, tn
shaggy head and the long. WOOL
hair so desirable in buffalo robes bein
reproduced almost as perfectly as !
: the parent bull The tail IS long an
!. Hat like mules tail. Horns al
absent vixen bred 20 mulleys. |
: two or three cases, where the nothei
> were Texas cows, the horns were Gk
buffalo horns, but some longer. or
peculiar animal. which is out of plaa
Z outside of sideshow, is the offsprin
of buffalo bull and a Texas eoy
which has black and white stripes rul
ming around the body like q zebra's-
The haIf-lreeds are heavier
weight than the average cattle, a
q better rustlers, and keep fat throug
; cold weather and hard rustling thi
thin the others and often result
: heavy fatalities.
Sir. Goodnight also has on his hon
!, ranch about thirty or thirty-iye c
! that were brought from Colorad
I which he has in pasture Of four
e five hundred acres, the fence aroul
&c which is eoyote-proof. These elk ha
y not thriven well, and do not appear
be at home.