Highveld Ranch Overview

     In 1857, Apache raiding parties still roamed the area when Christian Dietert and his family arrived from Germany and soon established large grist and sawmills in what would become Real County.  They eventually amassed a 20,000-acre spread that encompassed the land on which Highveld now sits.  The old historic Dietert house and nearby rural schoolhouse still stand on the southern part of the Ranch. 

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     Highveld Ranch lies in the heart of the famed Texas Hill Country, a region renowned for whitetails and exotic big game and long a favorite hunting and recreational destination.  Beautiful landscape, rich culture, favorable climate, abundant wildlife, and relative proximity to two of Texas’ most popular cities, San Antonio and Austin, make the Hill Country perhaps the fastest growing and most desirable region in Texas.  The Hill Country is characterized by mixed savanna grassland-woodlands, rocky hills, fertile valleys, vast vistas, live oaks, and spectacular wildflowers, especially bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush.  

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     At 4,365 contiguous acres, Highveld is an exceptionally large Hill Country ranch and a rare find these days.  Highveld means “High Savanna.”  This is a fitting name for a ranch predominated by rolling grassland/live oak savannas sitting atop a relatively level, broad 2,000-foot-high plateau in western Kerr and northern Real counties known as “The Divide.”  Highveld lies southwest of Mountain Home in northeast Real County on Hwy. 41 about 6 miles west of the intersection of Highways 83 and 41.  It is ideally situated about 2 hours west of San Antonio and Austin and an easy drive to popular Kerrville, Mountain Home, Junction, Fredericksburg, and Leakey, placing Highveld in the middle of the best hunting and most popular cultural and recreational area in the Hill Country.

     Highveld has excellent whitetail and turkey populations and is home to 10 exotic big game species, plus of course, wild hogs. Perhaps owing in part to the introduction of 50 bred native South Texas does over a decade ago, the overall quality of mature bucks on Highveld is exceptional.  Indeed, Highveld is home to record-class bucks!  Exotics include 5 deer species – axis, fallow, sika, red, barasingha; 2 sheep species – aoudad and red/mouflon cross; and blue wildebeest, scimitar oryx, and blackbucks.  

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     The ranch is game-fenced and well-watered with 6 wells with cisterns that gravity feed water through miles of poly pipe to permanent waterpoints throughout the ranch.  About 40 acres are currently in food plots.  Prior to 2019, a modest high-protein pellet feeding program supplemented native food sources, mainly shin oak, various brush species, grasses, forbs, and acorns.  Ample rainfall in 2020 and 2021 provided good native habitat for game.  The 2021 “Big Freeze” killed many exotics, helping maintain balance between wildlife and native habitat.  TP estimates well over 2,000 native and exotic big game animals roam Highveld.  TP has implemented a cottonseed feeding program to enhance the high-protein nutrition available to big game species.  

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     Highveld is surrounded by large ranches and good neighbors.  Basic shopping and services are available 30-45 minutes away in Kerrville, Junction, Leakey, and Rocksprings.  For metro services and major airports, San Antonio is about 2 hours away and Austin a little farther.  There is no conservation easement on the property.  Highveld is essentially turnkey, just step in and immediately start enjoying the place, whether as a hunting, recreational, and/or livestock ranch!