Joe Sedlacek is the owner of Lazy J Longhorns near Greenleaf, KS. Since 2008, he has been working full time at raising world-record-setting Texas Longhorns. One of Sedlacek’s home-raised steers was a three-time world champion because of the steer’s long horns.
Sedlacek continues to raise and market Longhorn steers and breeding stock. He also uses a registered Charolais bull to cross with certain Longhorns. This produces a beefy, naturally hornless calf that is excellent for the market. “It also keeps the quality higher in my registered Longhorn herd,” Sedlacek said.
Sedlacek points out that there are several advantages of the Longhorn breed, perhaps because they originated in the wilds of Texas more than a century ago.
“Their eating habits are more like a goat than a cow,” Sedlacek said. “They will eat more types of vegetation than a typical beef cow, so I can run more Longhorns per acre than straight Angus. Longhorns are really good moms and are really intelligent.”
As with other animals, Longhorns need occasional vaccinations and other herd health procedures. Many cattlemen have metal working chutes and headgates to hold the cattle still while they get their shots.
“No headgate is going to work with a steer with 10 foot long horns,” Sedlacek said. He sought to design a better system for handling his Longhorn cattle.
He had a welder come out to adapt his existing working chute. “I said, ‘Could you change this and add this and this?’ The welder said, ‘Why don’t you build what’s in your head as a new one instead?’” Sedlacek said.
So Sedlacek sketched out the design he had in mind, and a new one was built. “I worked for five years trying to perfect it,” Sedlacek said.
“Safety of the animal and the operator was my first priority,” Sedlacek said. He ended up with a system of panels in a clamshell design that can enclose the animal, using vertical bars and a nine-grid pattern to hold an animal of virtually any size in place.
“I had no idea of selling these, but everybody who saw me use one wanted one,” Sedlacek said. It became a business.
In order to differentiate it from chutes made by other builders, they started calling it the Joe Chute. The name stuck. In 2016, the Joe Chute was named the official working chute of the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America.
Unlike some chutes that have clanging handles, the Joe Chute is quiet. The gates can be adjusted to fit animals of almost any size, down to a baby calf.
“When you hold them tightly in place, it can calm them down,” Sedlacek said. “I know a guy who brands wild horses in it.” Temple Grandin, an animal welfare scientist, has even certified the Joe Chute.
Commercial beef producers have become interested in the chute. Uses have branched out to include exotic animals as well. “Anheuser-Busch has one of these in St. Louis that they use for cattle and elk,” Sedlacek said. “The zoo in Pueblo, CO, uses theirs for zebras and camels, and I expect other zoos will want them as well.”
Hundreds of the chutes have been produced and shipped as far away as Canada and Australia. It’s an impressive record for a company based in the rural community of Greenleaf, with a population of 331 people. Now that’s rural. — Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University
