Santa Cruz

[midtncattle]

Santa Cruz cattle look interesting to me. I like red and we all now the benefiets of cross breeding. Does anybody now much about the breed and where would one purchase them outside of Kings Ranch? What type of bull would you put on one for sale barn profit?

 

[Julian]

Santa Cruz cattle look interesting to me. I like red and we all now the benefiets of cross breeding. Does anybody now much about the breed and where would one purchase them outside of Kings Ranch? What type of bull would you put on one for sale barn profit?

I believe the Santa Cruz cattle are recorded within the Santa Gertrudis registry. You may want to contact the Santa Gertrudis Association to help you find breeders of the Santz Cruz composite. There is not a seperate Santa Cruz breeders association.

 

[Anonymous]

I really like my gert x herf girl. The herf in her seems to calm her way down yet still allows for great mothering, and she holds condition really well even in the heat of summer. almost all the straight gerts I've seen seem to be a little high strung, not bad but noticable. And most straight herfs I've seen are almost too laid back....so its a nice balance. But this is my just what I've noticed.
For the bull I'd put a nice black on them..if you ask me its the perfect match. Although I'd be curious to see what a char would do on a gert

 

[Caustic Burno]

Santa Cruz's really never took off gene pool really doesn't have a deep end.
It is people trying to build the better mouse trap of Beefmaster, Brangus or the Tiger it ain't there.
If it truely was a better trap the Gert's wouldn't have fallen and the Cruz's would have took off.
The Gert's were the cow of the 50's and 60's there were too many problems with the breed as the cattleman became more educated. Slow maturity, disposition, infertility and tally whacker problems.

 

[High Cotton]

Do these problems still plague the breed today? I read many people here seem to use gerts but mostly as a cross.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Do these problems still plague the breed today? I read many people here seem to use gerts but mostly as a cross.

I really don't know, I worked on my uncles ranch he used to run 250 head of Gert's.
I hated working those cows.
I can tell you how to kill a 5000 dollar bull in the 60's, trust me you will be white eyed for a long time.

 

[High Cotton]

Are they more high strung than brangus? I have never had an opportunity to work with any cows with very much Brahman influence but I have heard "the stories".

 

[Caustic Burno]

Are they more high strung than brangus and or brahman? I have never had an opportunity to work with any cows with very much Brahman influence but I have heard "the stories".

Uncles were if one head came up the other 249 were white eyed and ready to blow snot in your back pocket.
Give me brimmer's any day, something about the SH/Brimmer or Hereford/Brimmer cross brings the nuts out.

 

[High Cotton]

Thanks for letting me pick your brain for a second CB.

 

[Mid South Guy]

Santa Cruz were developed by the King Ranch for the King Ranch to improve the marbling scores of their cattle in their feedlots and my experience when working for some Santa Gertrudis breeders was the King Ranch's attitude was the cattle industry outside of the King Ranch was not important. That would explain why they haven't been promoted very much, but they do look very interesting. I quess you can have that attitude when you are big as they are. 40,000 - 60,000 head of brood cows over 6 counties

 

[Mid South Guy]

Also agree with hooknline. The Gert X Hereford female makes some of the best mother cows I have ever seen and owned, especially for the Southeast. This summer I saw mine out grazing in 100+ heat while the others were laying up in the shade. Probalbly the main reason their calves weaned off 50 lbs. heavier. Cows did not reduce their dry matter intake as much.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Also agree with hooknline. The Gert X Hereford female makes some of the best mother cows I have ever seen and owned, especially for the Southeast. This summer I saw mine out grazing in 100+ heat while the others were laying up in the shade. Probalbly the main reason their calves weaned off 50 lbs. heavier. Cows did not reduce their dry matter intake as much.

You made a Beefmaster nothing new.

 

[Massey135]

Also agree with hooknline. The Gert X Hereford female makes some of the best mother cows I have ever seen and owned, especially for the Southeast. This summer I saw mine out grazing in 100+ heat while the others were laying up in the shade. Probalbly the main reason their calves weaned off 50 lbs. heavier. Cows did not reduce their dry matter intake as much.

You made a Beefmaster nothing new.

Big difference between 3/16ths and half blood brimmer. The beefmaster is a stabalized composite whereas the Santa Cruz is a cross bred. Cross a char on the F1 cruz' and you got a lot of things going right for you. Jus make sure you check out the udders as both Gerts and herfs have historically had udder problems. Ie bloom tits.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Also agree with hooknline. The Gert X Hereford female makes some of the best mother cows I have ever seen and owned, especially for the Southeast. This summer I saw mine out grazing in 100+ heat while the others were laying up in the shade. Probalbly the main reason their calves weaned off 50 lbs. heavier. Cows did not reduce their dry matter intake as much.

You made a Beefmaster nothing new.

Big difference between 3/16ths and half blood brimmer. The beefmaster is a stabalized composite whereas the Santa Cruz is a cross bred. Cross a char on the F1 cruz' and you got a lot of things going right for you. Jus make sure you check out the udders as both Gerts and herfs have historically had udder problems. Ie bloom tits.

You are not near as smart as you think you are on the breed or the man that developed them. Beefmaster is1/4 hereford 1/4 shorthorn and 1/2 brahman supposedly as no one is quite sure except Tom Lasater.

The Beefmaster breed is the result of Tom Lasater experimenting with various combinations of three breeds - Hereford, Shorthorn, Brahman. He quickly discovered that the three-way cross was superior to any other combination and converted his entire herd to that cross. Beefmasters were recognized as a breed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1954. The breeds were not as important or the percentages to Lasater as his five principles.

Tom Lasater applied five principles to cattle breeding.

The First Commandment is to select only for the SIX ESSENTIALS;
Disposition, Fertility, Weight, Conformation, Milk Production and Hardiness.

The Second Commandment is to strive for reproductive efficiency.

The Third Commandment is to performance test in a constant environment.

The Fourth Commandment is to employ direct selection, which means selecting for the specific traits sought and not for a combination the breeder hopes will produce the desired results.

The Fifth Commandment is to utilize the adaptive powers of nature

 

[midtncattle]

I really like my gert x herf girl. The herf in her seems to calm her way down yet still allows for great mothering, and she holds condition really well even in the heat of summer. almost all the straight gerts I've seen seem to be a little high strung, not bad but noticable. And most straight herfs I've seen are almost too laid back....so its a nice balance. But this is my just what I've noticed.
For the bull I'd put a nice black on them..if you ask me its the perfect match. Although I'd be curious to see what a char would do on a gert

Here is one of my gert x char .

 

[midtncattle]

Also agree with hooknline. The Gert X Hereford female makes some of the best mother cows I have ever seen and owned, especially for the Southeast. This summer I saw mine out grazing in 100+ heat while the others were laying up in the shade. Probalbly the main reason their calves weaned off 50 lbs. heavier. Cows did not reduce their dry matter intake as much.

You made a Beefmaster nothing new.

Big difference between 3/16ths and half blood brimmer. The beefmaster is a stabalized composite whereas the Santa Cruz is a cross bred. Cross a char on the F1 cruz' and you got a lot of things going right for you. Jus make sure you check out the udders as both Gerts and herfs have historically had udder problems. Ie bloom tits.

I was thinking a char x santa cruz. Tell me what to look for in those tits. And does the F1 have any specific meaning in this case?

 

[Santas and Duhram Reds]

Santa Cruz cattle have not gotten much support because most Gert people utilize and support the Star5 program instead. A hereford Gert cross is not the same as a beefmaster. Gert problems are no different than that of any other breed, selection is key.

 

[Caustic Burno]

No one is sure of the percentages of what is in a Gert either. O'Conner from the king Ranch bought his bulls from Shanghi Pierce as he was the original importer of the Brahman and his bulls were not full blood that he sold to the King Ranch. No one has a clue as to what Pierce had crossed with. The only thing we know that over a hundred years ago the King Ranch put Pierce's bulls on Shorthorn cattle. It is believed not known that Pierce had crossed with Shorthorn.
He imported anything with a hump from several different countries and no one has a clue to the breeding that took place.
Lasater the other big player in Texas seen all the faults in Gert's, Brahman,and Shorthorn and put Hereford in the mix to get a more fertile, docile animal. Ya'll are trying to put science where it isn't on cattlemen over a hundred years ago knowing they had to do better than longhorn. No one knows for sure except three dead men what the criteria was used processes except Lasater, and he believed in natural selection.

 

[Santas and Duhram Reds]

CB
All of that may be true but it is certain that a Beefmaster is not 1/2 Hereford and it is certain that a GertXHerf will have less bos indicus than a Beefmaster. Brownies and cake are similar but not the same.

 

[Caustic Burno]

CB
All of that may be true but it is certain that a Beefmaster is not 1/2 Hereford and it is certain that a GertXHerf will have less bos indicus than a Beefmaster. Brownies and cake are similar but not the same.

You or I have no clue as to what the mix is the Lasater ranch only had estimates. The only thing that is a Known is Shorthorn, Hereford and Brahman's were used. The Brahmans were aquired by Tom Lasater's father in 1908.
The source of Brahman Cattle in Texas at that time was form Shanghi Pierce's stock.

"Mr. Lasater also developed a registered Hereford herd in which the cattle had red circles around each eye. In both his Brahman and Hereford breeding, milk production was stressed. Following his death in 1930, the breeding operations came under the direction of his son, Tom Lasater, who began to combine the breeding of the Brahman and Hereford cattle and also used some registered Shorthorn bulls. After making crosses of Brahman-Hereford and Brahman-Shorthorn, he felt a superior animal had been produced and called the cattle "Beefmaster." The exact pedigree of the foundation cattle was not known. The breeding operations were carried on in multiple-sire herds and rigid culling was practiced. The Lasater Ranch estimates that modern Beefmaster have slightly less than one-half Brahman blood and slightly more than one-fourth of Hereford and Shorthorn breeding."