Modern cowboys conduct wellness checks on horseback at the Wrangler Feedyard in Tulia, Texas, the last home to around fifty thousand head. Wrangler is one of ten feedlots in Texas and Kansas owned by Amarillo-based Cactus Feeders that collectively can provide feed and care for a half million cattle. At the Wrangler facility, cattle arrive at around 750 pounds, then spend five to six months eating some 20 pounds of dry feed and fodder each day until they reach slaughter weight. Cactus sends more than a million head to slaughter each year, typically to the Tyson beef processing plants in Amarillo, Texas, and Holcomb, Kansas. According to the Texas Farm Bureau, there are more cattle on feedlots within 150 miles of Amarillo than any other area in the world. Economies of scale make concentrating large numbers of cattle in feedlots highly efficient at producing beef, as well as large amounts of waste. Giant feedlots like Wrangler boomed in the US in the 1960s and, with the use of corn feed, improved genetics, growth-hormone implants, and feed additives, increased the beef production per cow from less than 250 pounds in 1950 to more than 660 pounds today. With the help of imported cattle from Canada and Mexico, beef production in the US nearly doubled between 1960 and 2022 from roughly the same herd size.
