History of Texas Longhorn in Australia

In 1985 Patrick Holt imported the first Texas Longhorns to Australia.  He worked closely with Australian Federal officials to develop the import protocols, since no live animals from the breed had ever before been imported. 

The live animals were selected from the Texas Longhorn herd in Montana, USA that had been selectively bred by H Bar R Ranches for over 15 years.  Four animals were selected: two young bulls (H-R Rural Frost and H-R Montana Jack) and two heifers:  (H-R Shooting Star and H-R Snowbird). It was also decided to import semen from HB Texas Mickey directly from Canada. 

The cattle were placed in on-farm quarantine in Montana for 60 days, then went to an international cattle quarantine facility in Illinois for six months.  From Illinois, they were flown to Cocos Island for 90 days further quarantine.  They left the USA in N. American winter at approx. minus 30 F to summer in the Indian Ocean where temperatures were around 35-45 degrees Celsius and high humidity. 

Those Texas Longhorns were noted as the best performing cattle in that group for endurance and weight gain at the Cocos Island quarantine. The Longhorns went from Cocos Island to Brisbane where the bulls went into semen collection at Wacol.  Some of this semen was later taken to New Zealand, and again, Patrick was the first to take the Longhorn Genetics to New Zealand.  The females went to a farm out of Warwick.  The first public showing of the Cattle took place in Mackay in 1986.

In Warwick, Embryo work was begun on H-R Shooting Star and H-R Snowbird.  From these collections we collected viable embryos and they were transferred into the surrogate cows and became the first Texas Longhorns born in Australia.  These cattle were later sold to buyers in Victoria and Qld.

Patrick continued to reside in Montana and made several trips a year to Australia. It proved very difficult and expensive to manage the cattle operation from this distance and the difficult decision was made to sell the genetics and live animals in the early 90’s.  Patrick continued his involvement in the US operations and was actively involved in the national organizations. 

He was a founding board member of the International Texas Longhorn Association in Texas and one of the first certified national breed cattle show judges.  He judged numerous Texas Longhorn shows in the USA and was selected to be one of three judges at the National Texas Longhorn Show in West Virginia in 1990.

Patrick met his wife, Linda, through the livestock showing and marketing of Texas Longhorns in Australia.  She was born and raised on a rural property in the Riverina.  They lived for many years in the USA before making the decision to relocate overseas.  They moved to Australia in 2011, after living for 8 years in NZ. They have one son, who also resides in Australia.