Projects

4-Corners Bull Test

Beef Cattle Improvement Association Bull Test

Colorado State University was one of the first universities to establish a bull test for evaluating the performance of young bulls. Progeny from the breeding herd has been performance tested since 1949.

The elevation of the Four Corners Bull test is 7,600 feet making it the nation's only high mountain bull test.  Many of the cooperators as well as buyers run their cattle at high elevations and are concerned about costly losses to brisket disease (high altitude disease). BEEF magazine published an excellent article entitled "Faint of Heart" describing PAPs and their relationship to brisket disease. In 1975, a forty pen bull testing facility was built by the Cooperators to test over 200 bulls annually. The 4-Corners Bull Test operated until 2006 in Hesperus.

Bull calves were fed on an individual basis until 1980 when electronic feeders were installed and individual feed intake was measured and recorded by mini-computers. This provides feed conversion data for individual bulls and is helpful in evaluating the various lines of cattle in the herd.

4 Corners bull breeding barn
Photo courtesy of Al & Ruth Denham

bull in breeding program
Photo courtesy of SJBRC Archives

San Juan Basin Research Center

Research at the Old Fort provided many opportunities for graduate student research projects at Colorado State University. Over 40 MS theses and Ph.D. dissertations have been written on data collected at the Old Fort (San Juan Basin Research Center), and over 200 scientific papers and popular articles have been published.

In June 2010, Colorado State University closed the San Juan Basin Research Center at the Hesperus location.

View historical research records

Reach out about a new project

Please contact us to inquire about a new project at the Old Fort.

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The Old Fort

18683 CO-140
Hesperus, CO 81326
 oldfortathesperus@fortlewis.edu
 970-385-4574

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Land Acknowledgement 

We acknowledge the land that the Old Fort is situated upon is the ancestral land and territory of the Nuuchiu (Ute) people who were forcibly removed by the United States Government. We also acknowledge that this land is connected to the communal and ceremonial spaces of the Jicarilla Abache (Apache), Pueblos of New Mexico, Hopi Sinom (Hopi), and Diné (Navajo) Nations.

The Old Fort and Fort Lewis College are committed to reconciling their history as a federal Indian Boarding School from 1892 to 1909.

Learn more about reconciliation

 

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The Old Fort is owned by the Colorado State Land Board and managed by Fort Lewis College.


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