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Brangus work on the Texas coast

published: March 28th 2008

The H.W. Hamilton Ranch, Sinton, Texas has a long history in the Texas cattle business, as the ranch can trace its origin back to the original Spanish land grant of the early 1800’s. Today the ranch focuses on crossing Brangus® bulls with Brahman x Hereford F1 females to produce what they think is an unbeatable female for the southern tier of the United States.

Rob Thomas, manages the family ranch and selects Brangus bulls from a number of different outfits. He selects bulls that are clean sheathed, heavy boned and with a lot of red meat. They started using Brangus bulls seven years ago and Thomas likes the extra hybrid vigor he gets with the Brangus.

In addition, he appreciates the breed’s ability to thrive in the tough, brush country of South Texas. He finds they withstand the elements very well and cover lots of ground to get cows bred. Their pastures range in size  from approximately 800-1,000 acres.

The program includes 500 Brahman cows bred to Hereford bulls to produce F1 females. This year they added some Angus bulls to cross on the Brahman females, to produce some black F1’s also. Then the resulting heifers from this cross are crossed with Brangus bulls to produce black baldies. Previously they used Angus bulls on the resulting tiger stripes.

The Brangus baldies are sold at approximately 700 pounds and sold ready to breed. The ranch does maintain a select number and breed to Brangus bulls for consignments to some of the special replacement heifer sales.

“We market our black baldies through  the South Texas Marketing Group sales and through private treaty. We have developed a strong market for these females and have many repeat buyers, ” describes Thomas.

The steer calves from both crosses are sold at private treaty on the ranch at weaning. Again, their calves draw repeat buyers .

The ranch calves in January through March and bulls for the program are turned out March 1st.

“The Brangus bulls hold up real well. They take the humidity and heat as well as the brush, which are some pretty strong elements here,” says Thomas, who has purchased bulls for the ranch from a number of Texas registered operations

The Brangus breed fits their program, their environment and has proven to be a very marketable product for this Texas ranch.