Polled Brahman
A Brief History of Our Involvement with the Brahman Breed
By Carlos X. Guerra, Owner of La Muneca Cattle Co.
My family started in the registered Brahman business during World War II when my Tio Arcadio, my Dad’s brother who was also my Godfather bought some Grey Brahmans while Dad was in the war. When Dad got back from the war, they created Guerra Bros. and concentrated more on farming, ginning and building grain elevators than on the registered Brahmans. They sold them soon after. Our original ABBA Membership number was 339.
Guerra Bros. got back in the Brahman business in the mid 70’s by buying a herd of 1/2 Brahman x 1/2 Indu cows from our good friend Carl Schuster, who had been using them to develop his Charbray herd. The cattle were bred in Mexico by Reyes Garcia. They owned thousands of good Brahman cattle. I had the opportunity to visit some of their many ranches and was very impressed with the quality.
Our goal was to build a functional and gentle herd of Red Brahmans. We used bulls from Henry Clay Koontz, Dr. Lee McKellar, Billy Powell and West Ward. All of these individuals were very helpful. We became good friends. I learned a lot about the history, breeding and how to market these cattle from Dr. McKellar and Henry Clay.
We later added cattle from several herds including Raymond Long, Eligio & Esteban Garcia, Carlos Remedios, Dale Sikora, Hudson and several others. We produced our share of the great ones and won our share of shows. Two of the best Red bulls of all times were 5P Balia 659 and Ward’s Bravo 1/09. We developed both bulls, made them Register of Renown as young as ever in history and sold over one million dollars of semen on them. We are still using their genetics in our Simbrah herd today.
My two fondest memories are (1) when I stepped down from our sale ring podium after averaging $3,195 at our first Spirit of 46 Sale in 1979 and (2) when I was master of ceremonies as chairman of the Youth Activities Committee, for the All American in the early eighties in Lake Charles. We had 1,000 Brahman enthusiasts in attendance that evening and 100% of them were fired up about the Brahman breed.
Later I became very involved in the International Zebu Breeders Association where we made lots of positive things happen such as a 750 head futurity, circulating a great magazine, holding several field days, carcass research and lots of other exciting events. When the tax laws changed we utilized our Red Brahman herd to create our Simbrah herd which today is recognized as one of the best in the world.
When Carlitos graduated from Texas A & M and was ready to go to work full time with La Muneca, I asked him if there was another breed of cattle that he would like to be involved with. His answer was American Grey Brahmans. We bought a great set of heifers from Danny Acevedo sired by champion V8 bulls.
Later when our good friend David Westfall passed away, we helped them disperse their herd and partnered with Chris, John and Stephanie on their best twelve cows. The best one was our HERD MATRIARCH, the POLLED 707 cow who is rewriting the POLLED history book. She is the dam to our POLLED Sr. Herd Sire, LMC WFF Pistolero, named after David’s calling his close buddies PISTOL.
She is also the dam to LMC WFF POLLED Maestro, POLLED Master, POLLED Success, Beth, Jenny, Christina and Stephanie. She is our Foundation cow for our POLLED program. Our mission is to produce our share of the best beefy, functional POLLED Brahman cattle in the world and share them with the beef industry.
Why POLLED? Why not – when you can genetically dehorn your calf crop, eliminate all stress & death losses from de-horning and not lose any quality but gain in consumer demand and profitability. All other beef breeds have done it except for Longhorns with their name telling you why they have not.
We are proud of our small, but elite POLLED herd made up of cattle from Schneider Ranch, Koolemay Ranch, Randall Tipp, Joe Ward, Double A Ranch, Bailey Ranch, Jody Youngblood and V8 Ranch.
Our horned cattle come from J.D. Hudgins, Horsegate, Double A, Koontz Ranch, RB Ranch and Westfall Family Farms. We are breeding them to our POLLED bulls to optimize their potential. We are excited to be back in the Brahman business and look forward to participating in the genetic improvement of the breed and assisting in creating new markets.
Be on the lookout for our program’s development through the Brahman Journal and our website. We believe in introducing a drip of NEW BLOOD every year in an effort to breed the best we can breed. We will also use artificial insemination, embryo transfer and will be emphasizing fertility, early puberty, muscle, disposition, performance, clean sheaths, eye appeal and state of the art pedigrees.
VISITORS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME AT LA MUNECA !!!