It has been 19 years since we started this journey and during this time we have seen a world of changes in this business and in our seedstock program. We can honestly say that when we started our herd we just wanted to be involved in the registered Brangus business because we liked the cattle. However, somewhere along the way our goals changed and we decided it was no longer good enough to just be propagators of registered cattle.

We got excited, committed and dedicated to producing the best Brangus seedstock in the country. The more we became involved, the more we wanted to excel in raising viable breeding value for the beef business. We came to realize our bull buyers were placing their faith in Mound Creek to provide bulls that would make positive changes in their programs. Changes that meant more calves born, more weight at weaning, replacements that can stand the test of time and now changes that mean more value in a grid based system. Quite a responsibility when considering the long term implications and the consequences of our buyers decisions in selecting Mound Creek bulls. It also became apparent that you only get to shoot until you miss. If our bulls work then we get to sell bulls to that same buyer next year. If they don’t work then we probably will never get that second shot.

With this in mind we embarked on our journey to produce the best beef bulls in the business. Period. Bulls that were sound, durable, athletic, hard working and able to stand whatever test was thrown their way in a forage based environment. We decided, we would not be a follower, but make our own path and create the kind of cattle we liked and the kind our bull buyers demanded.

Our Program….

Our industry was changing and we knew our genetic program had to be on the leading edge or be left behind with the pack. We had early successes in producing solid bulls and in our marketing efforts. We put pressure on our cow herd to live up to standards for calving intervals, ideal calf raising value, quality produced, performance, carcass merit and buyers demand. However, it seemed like something was always missing and we wondered if there was enough genetic diversity in our breed population that could help us create the kind we envisioned for changing demands.
 

So we made another monumental decision. We decided to start from scratch and build a brand new genetic package that would ultimately incorporate the best genetic resources from our Brangus population along with the best offered from our foundation breeds of Angus and Brahman. This design would be ours alone to either succeed or fail. Whatever the consequences we knew our business was raising bulls designed to create profit at each level of our business. Did not matter to us what was popular in seedstock circles. Only thing that mattered was raising the best beef bulls in the business that addressed the needs of our ranching customers.

We were fortunate to obtain five half-blood females that would ultimately form the foundation of our new genetics effort and then later added one more half-blood. These six half-blood females collectively rank on average in the top half of the Brangus population for birth weight, upper 20% for weaning weight, upper 25% for yearling weight, high 3% for milk and top 2% for total maternal. We made exhaustive searches for Brahman and Angus sires each required to meet high specifications for our required traits. Next, we used these six half-blood females in our embryo transfer program and worked them back and forth between the two parent breeds producing one-quarter and three-quarter offspring. As these calves started coming of age we became excited because of their quality, type, performance and soundness. At yearling time the next real test was at hand. These cattle were meeting our standards across the board but how were they going to stand the carcass merit test? Again, our efforts proved successful with amazing results from ultrasound proving our new genetics cattle were going to be viable carcass oriented seedstock.

From those early matings and subsequent calves born we have identified a fair number of cows that earned their way into our donor program and now are producing new genetic Brangus. Cool Hand jumped out of the pack and has proven to be a sire of unlimited breeding value blending performance, maternal value and carcass merit. Our new genetics Brangus now have calves from our multi-generation bulls like News Man, Watash and John Wayne which are proving to be exciting beyond belief. Our new genetics herd and multi-generation herd are now working in harmony and helping us realize our priority goal of producing the best beef bulls in the business. After all, we demand these cattle fulfill our slogan… “Conception to Consumer.”