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Pine Ridge Ranch leads breed in exporting

published: September 18th 2009
by: Martha Hollida Garrett

Pine Ridge Ranch, now in its 38th year of existence, can lay claim to utililizing many progressive breeding and marketing procedures in the cattle industry and the demand for their Sim-brah cattle has earned them not only the ranking as the largest breeder of Simbrah cattle, but they were the largest exporter of any breed to Mexico in 2008.
    Cattle with the TX brand and the PRR prefix can be found across Texas, the Southeast, the lower Midwest, California, Wash-ington State, Arizona, Mexico, Central and South America, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Cana-da and Australia. They believe their Simbrah genetics will work in 65% of the world’s grazing areas and the foreign interest in their cattle documents their premise.
    The ranch, owned by Bill and Jane Travis, is located in the rolling, hardwood and pine tree covered hills of East Texas at Athens.  They now own a few Simmental, with the majority of the cattle predominately Simbrah.
    The Travis’ began developing their breeding program in 1981, after a decade of managing up to 750 commercial cows and developing a small registered Angus herd. Their goal was to develop the most efficient hot weather cow that prospered in its environment, and that produced a more heart healthy product that would be juicy, flavorful and very tender.
    “Our specification had approximately 40 efficiency factors. The cow we specified  did not exist and developing these cattle would take 40 years of disciplined breeding,” des-cribes Travis.
    In this 28th year of development, they have developed an excellent hot weather cow and a carcass they believe is more valuable than Angus.
    “Our carcass is more heart healthy by greatly reducing the saturated fat as compared to Angus CAB beef. Tenderness, juiciness and flavor are realized with our low to mid choice product” states Travis.
    “Linebreeding would have accelerated the development of our ideal cow, but we would have sacrificed the magic of heterosis and that was not a short cut we would even consider,” he explains.
    Pine Ridge Ranch has fed and harvested their own steers for over 20 years and know what their genetic lines will do in terms of performance. They continue to research additional quality bloodlines to include in their breeding. Steers from their donors cows are grading 89% Choice and 100% Yield Grade 1s, 2s and 3s.
    “We believe that we have developed a breeding procedure that may practically eliminate yield grade 4 and 5 carcasses which are greatly discounted by the packing houses. Early harvest provides additional savings to the industry in terms of man power, water, feedlot waste, feed, medicine and time,” he says. Our steers have the genetics to grow to 1400 pounds, on or before, 16 months of age. Early harvest cattle produce more tender beef,” he explains.
    Pine Ridge utilizes the tools of GeneStar, ultrasound, carcass data, EPDs, a net feed intake measuring system and cowboy sense to insure that next generations of cattle provide nutritious, heart healthy and a most enjoyable meal. Over half of Pine Ridge calves are produced through embryo transfer.
    Cattle produced in this program, not only excel in traits not readily seen, but are phenotypically very desirable. Show heifers from Pine Ridge have dominated the Texas Junior Livestock Association championship over the last decade.
    Both Bill and Jane have served as committee members with the NCBA for approximately twenty years and are active in the Simbrah Alliance, the Texas Simmental/Simbrah Association, the Simbrah Superbowl, the Simbrah Synergy and are very supportive of the youth activities of the breed. In addition, they have traveled extensively throughout the world to study cattle breeding and promote the Simbrah breed.
    “Breeding with Sim-mental and Brahman genetics is stimulating and the genetics developed by our fellow Simbrah breeders are most essential in the program we have undertaken,” he concludes.
SLS