Our Philosophy

If you ranch in the South you probably need some Brahman influence in your cowherd. We offer F-1 Brahman – Angus replacement heifers for commercial cattlemen that ranch in the heat and humidity of the Gulf Coast.

Red Rock Ranch is on the edge of the Piney Woods area of East Texas, in Cherokee County. For years we ran a straight Angus herd until a large commercial operator proposed we put Gray Brahman bulls on our cows and sell him the resulting F-1 heifers. We started crossbreeding one set of cows, liked the results and over time started breeding our entire herd to Gray Brahman bulls. We like the Angus breed and the Gray Brahman breed; each offer something the other breed can’t. Which is why heterosis or hybrid vigor makes good sense.

We believe in moderate cows and bulls. When we select replacement females we want a moderate frame that doesn’t produce too much milk - say a milk EPD of 20 to 28 in the Angus breed. We purchase low birth weight Gray Brahman bulls. The resultant females are easy keepers, needing fewer inputs to maintain themselves and raise a calf; a good female to use with Angus, Ultrablack or Hereford bulls.

Our Brahman bulls are purchased from J. D. Hudgins, Partin and Partin and Bonchasse Ranch.

We run a fall herd and a spring herd. We wean our fall calves the last week of June and the spring calves the last week of October. We can load out the calves the day they are weaned or background them for a mutually agreed upon time. All calves will have had two rounds of respiratory and clostridial vaccine, wormer and fly tagged. We can OCV the heifer calves before shipment.

Our first round of vaccinations is given in March or September and the second is in April or October. The second round of shots is given before weaning to lessen stress and get a better response.

The first round consists of a 2 cc subcutaneous (SQ) shot of Triangle 5 (a killed vaccine) and 2 cc SQ of Vision 7 Somnus with Spur.

The second round is 2 cc SQ Vista Once (modified live) and another round of Vision 7 Somnus with Spur.

The calves are dehorned and wormed with either Dectomax or Cydectin in April, and Valbazen in October. Fly tags are applied during the April working of the Fall calves.

We plant crimson clover, oats and a 5 seed blend on around 800 acres each fall. When rainfall is adequate the resulting forage is well worth the expense of planting. And now with the advent of baleage in East Texas there is the opportunity to turn excess cover crops into high quality feed and not waste the forage.

We present Purina liquid feed to our cowherd year round. We have engaged in this practice for almost two years and can see the cow condition entering winter, for both spring and fall herds, has improved. More time is needed to see if the liquid feed does translate into higher pregnancy rates and heavier weaning weight but thus far our steers are weaning 30 pounds heavier.

We still provide some 34% cottonseed cubes once a week during the winter to ensure the cow condition is good, so we can put our eyes on about every cow-calf pair and check for problems and to keep the cows trained to come to the horn. Moving a few hundred head of cattle is a lot easier if they know the horn is an indicator that something good is about to happen.