Smaller cows a big favorite

Miniature Herefords find niche as pets - or tasty tax benefits

Joe Garner, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 19, 2006 at midnight

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Miniature Herefords are coming on big in the urban West.

About 150 of the docile, dark-eyed cattle will be shown Friday at the National Western Stock Show, only seven years after the breed debuted in Denver.

"They're a niche breed," said Justin Grady, co-owner of the J Bar W Cattle Co. in Elizabeth. He and his wife, Joleen, run a herd of 50 cattle on 200 acres between Denver's sprawling suburbs and the disappearing plains.

"We're not going to feed the world with miniature Herefords," Grady said, "but, with all the hundreds of thousands of acres of ranch land we're losing (to real estate development)each year, that's where these cattle come in."

Miniature Herefords stand two-thirds the height of mammoth, modern bulls and weigh one-third to half as much. They are just the breed for the owner of a ranchette who fancies himself a cattle baron.

As Grady explained it, miniature Herefords are more the size of the Herefords that were brought from England. Through scientific breeding, the historic animals have been supersized into the behemoths, weighing 2,500 pounds or more, that sire modern cattle herds.

Contrary to the trend to produce ever-larger cattle, the miniature Herefords have been "downbred" to return the animals to the historic size, he said.

"We did no genetic changes. We did no crossbreeding," Grady said. "They are registered like any other big cattle."

Because they are smaller and lighter in weight, the miniature Herefords eat less and have somewhat less environmental impact on the land they graze, so they are more "efficient," he said.

A small herd of miniature Herefords also may be efficient in another sense. They may qualify a landowner to be assessed and taxed at lower agricultural rates instead of higher residential rates.

In Lakewood, Steve McIntyre and his family live on a one-acre spread, where he also operates the McIntyre Cattle Co., with two miniature Herefords. Along the street, which invokes the yesterdays when Jefferson County was mostly rural land between Denver and the mountains, neighbors still keep horses, burros and alpacas, he said.

Although the two miniature Herefords sometimes bawl or moo, "Nobody knows they're there," McIntyre said.

He bought his herd, including the eight animals he keeps at a ranch near Brighton, at the request of his 15-year-old son, Stephen .

"I just have always liked them," said Stephen, a sophomore at Lakewood High School who aspires to be a veterinarian. "They have different personalities."

For some cow fanciers, who may pay at least $5,000 for a bull to sire a herd, the miniature Herefords become pets. They are the members of the family who happen to live in a barn.

"If you're scratching her and you stop, she headbutts you so you'll start scratching her again," said Joleen Grady, describing the bond that develops between ranchers and their animals.

But, just as small is personable and cute, small also is tasty.

The miniature Herefords typically are custom-butchered for individual buyers who purchase a quarter or other section of the animal for their private use, said Ali Petersen, of the KP Ranch at Tekamah, Neb., who is president of the Miniature Hereford Breeders Association.

Miniature Herefords, she said, are too few in number to figure in the national food-supply chain, which keeps steaks on supermarket shelves.

"I tell people, 'You eat 'em or sell 'em, and you can't eat 'em all," Petersen said. "They're cows."

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