2024 Fall Cattle Journal | Huwa Cattle

All Around Excellence 

Brent and Tonya Huwa, along with their five children and Brent’s two brothers and dad, operate their numerous businesses with the tactic “divide and conquer.”  

“We all work together, but we all know which pieces we’re taking care of,” said Tonya. “I don’t know any other way you could do it. We’re pretty diverse.”  

Tonya oversees the cattle operation, Huwa Cattle, while husband Brent owns and manages a reclamation business, H2 Enterprises. An offshoot from cattle production, they own Huwa Reserve, an online meat delivery company. They also form one side of a partnership on Brent’s family farm. 

Their five children, aged 14 to 25, are capable and eager to help with daily chores and ranch duties, calving, breeding, and filling in on projects at H2. “During the school season, they’re not around as much, but on breaks they are very involved at the ranch and at my husband’s reclamation business,” Huwa said.  

Tonya, originally from the Longmont-Meade area, was raised around all kinds of cattle. Her grandfather owned a dairy and a commercial cattle ranch and her family had a herd of registered Limousin and Maine Anjou cattle throughout her show career. 

When her kids started showing cattle, Huwas started utilizing “clubby genetics” to sell and raise. As time went on, Huwas established their branded beef marketing business and began tailoring genetics for the best overall multi-trait specimen with high carcass merit, leading them to purebred registered Angus. 

An added bonus was the ability to market their superior genetics through their annual registered bull and female sales. As Huwas have multiple ends in mind, they do not single-trait select when making breeding decisions for their herd of 600 cows.  

Huwa said, “While we not only want to raise beef for the terminal side, we focus on the longevity and maternal side, too. I want the replacement heifers she keeps staying in the herd and her bulls to be fertile, sound, and productive for as long as possible.”  

“We want longevity, fertility, good udders, and good feet, but also have the phenotype to go with it. We’re trying to cover all the bases. We want them to look good and be functional.”  

Huwa understands the importance of EPDs, but phenotype and longevity from deep and proven bloodlines is crucial, in her mind. “I believe our customers really appreciate that we aren’t just focused on the numbers or the look; we focus on both.”  

This February will be their fourth annual female sale and eighth bull sale. In the past, females were sold in October while the bulls sold February, but this year, the sales will be combined.  

This decision was made for customer convenience. Though their location in Roggen, an hour from Denver, is convenient for customers flying in, the single sale will allow them to meet their buying needs in one day.  

Huwas have dealt with severe drought in the past couple of years, which led to some tough management decisions. “The drought was hard. We had to make some pretty big adjustments and had to cut numbers,” she said. However, their goal is to sell 150-200 bulls every year, and they are nearing that goal with 100 bulls slotted for this year’s sale.  

In recent years, they also opted to switch from spring calving to fall calving. “It’s an opportunity for us to put some age on our animals. Our bulls will all be 15 months old [at the time of the sale],” she said. With calving, AIing, and embryo transfer all coinciding with what used to be a fall sale, moving the female sale to February was also a decision for labor ease. The cattle business has three full-time employees year-round and several interns during the summer.  

Though the Huwa kids started showing cattle at a young age, they found their passion in competitive rodeo. “That’s our main thing,” Huwa said. “All three boys went to school on rodeo scholarships. They used to show all the time and we did both. It became a little overwhelming. We decided we needed to gear back and they all decided that rodeo is where we want to focus.”  

Brealynn, the youngest, is a high school freshman and avid competitor in high school rodeo. She and her older sister, Kylie (24), who has special needs, are the two remaining Huwa kids at home. “[Kylie] helps us on the ranch where she can and goes to the office and helps Brent,” said Huwa.  

Trey is a college freshman rodeoing at South Plains College, and Austin is a senior rodeoing at Texas Tech. The oldest, Cody, who is 25, graduated from Oklahoma State University two years ago. “He’s back full-time working with my husband at the reclamation business,” said Huwa.  

“They’re all trying to figure out what they want to do, but they’re all very involved and want to come back.” 

Huwa Enterprises, one of the largest reclamation businesses in the country, employs nearly 1,000 people in and out of Colorado. “When they’re putting in oil and gas lines or if there are any fire disasters, we’re the ones that go back and rebuild it,” Huwa said, “We replant the grass and put everything back together. We’re also doing some of the solar pads, getting it all lined out for them with grass seeding and maintenance. We’re kind of the fixers.”  

With so many irons in the fire, excellence is an expectation. Huwas perhaps have a closer view of the end goal of cattle production in mind, with immediate carcass data through their branded beef company.  

Since the inception of their cattle business, they have remained on the cutting edge of reproductive technology. “We have used AI and embryo transfer (ET) very extensively. We started our herd with several foundation donors seven years ago, and in a short time tripled the herd. We use a protocol of two cycles of AI and two cycles of ET each year,” she said.  

“We’ve been doing quite a bit of IVF over the last couple years, mainly because it’s so much more convenient. We can keep our donors in production and let them continue to calve as well as continue to flush, rather than them just sit around and get fat and not be as productive, and have done great with it helping us to continue to grow our herd and move quicker genetically.”  

As their herd has grown, so have the Huwa Cattle sales. “We have sold bulls throughout 25 states and hope to continue to add more to our customer base,” Huwa said.  

“With our branded beef program, we are selling the direct product on all scales – from farm to plate – and we are really striving to make sure that we send out the best with our name on it, with our concentration on high prime beef.”  

Huwas directly manage every decision in the process, from breeding to processing. “All our feed is raised and fed by the family. This helps us oversee all sides of the operation from calving, breeding, developing and finishing out our cattle,” Huwa said.  

The eighth annual Huwa Cattle Production sale is scheduled for Feb. 5. For more information, see huwacattle.com or huwareserve.com.