Batman's Beauty Regiment

“He’ll step on me, but it doesn’t hurt anymore,” says Ethan Langston, pushing back his 1,280-pound steer Batman to stand straight before the fence. Langston has been raising and showing steers for the past 5-6 years and become accustomed to the hours of work and care that goes into raising the animals even if his feet do get smashed from time to time.

“One of my dad’s coworkers, he had a place right next to us. He just kind of asked me if I wanted to [start showing] and I was like, ‘yeah, I’ll give it a shot’. I’ve done it ever since. Ever since he gave me that opportunity, I’ve just been growing from it. I’ve enjoyed it. I was in football and all that and I decided to give up that for this,” he said.

Working with the animals is time consuming, Langston says, in particular halter-breaking and washing the steers when they have long hair.  “We use Dawn, Dawn dishwashing liquid [and] Main and Tail conditioner,” he explains the bi-weekly steer wash routine.  The steers go through a beauty regiment nearly as thorough as what some women do, he laughs, pedicures included.

“Our ag teacher takes them down to Winters, “ he said. “They have a calf turntable there that can flip them on their side.” While they’re horizontal, the calf’s feet are cleaned and the hooves are trimmed.

Batman, the Brangus steer Langston brought to show in the San Angelo Stock Show Wednesday, is sporting a slick sheer haircut. Langston explains that all shows after Fort Worth are slick sheer shows, those before the cattle have long hair that has to be washed and maintained.

“I had one at home that had six inches of hair,” he said, adding that sheering the animals can be pretty time consuming. As Batman again starts shuffling sideways, he says, “It took me 4-5 hours to cut his hair.”

Batman, along with all of Langston’s steers, was bred for beef. Ethan Langston’s father Robert explains how the animals are judged in a show. “[They are judged on] market readiness. You get into width, how big the top is, what kind of product you can get. These steers are raised for beef. It’s going to be what the beef market is going to look for in a perfect animal to get top quality meat, to get maximum meat out of an animal, that kind of stuff. That’s just the reality of it,” he says.

Neither of the Langston’s have a problem eating beef and they’re not thinking of poor Batman when there’s a steak on the dinner table. “That’s kind of a first year thing,” Robert Langston says. “We don’t ever eat ours, we sell ours. This is his (Ethan’s) banknote, this is his loan, so everything we do goes back to sell for his note, goes toward his future.”

Ethan Langston says he hopes to win big, and has come close in the past, taking 2nd place at the San Antonio Stock Show two years ago.  “The kid that won grand champion at San Antonio last year won $110,000. Fort Worth there was a kid that won $210,000. I got second at San Antonio two years ago and I got about $5,700. It went back into our steer account so that we could get one the next year,” he said.

Unlike many that raise cattle, the Langston family doesn’t buy their stock from big-name breeders with a hefty price tag.  Some steers can cost up to $20-30,000, however they purchase their animals from locals, “in the pasture”. Batman came from a local and cost $1,000. When Langston sells his steer, he hopes to get $2,000 for him.

Langston said, “We have gotten some good ones in the past. It’s just the way you treat them and wash them up and take care of them.”