The breed, which was developed in Saskatchewan and recognized in 2006, was a big hit at a recent show in Houston
HOUSTON, Texas — When Brandy Barnes saw Speckle Park cattle on display at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado, she decided they would be welcome on her Texas ranch.
So now, four heifers from Notta Ranch in Saskatchewan are living at Wortham, Texas, three hours north of Houston.
“They are pretty cool and I just love them,” she said from her stall at the Houston Livestock Show where her family was showing Brahmans.
Her family has been in that business for 70 years and the Speckle Parks were not what she was used to. They arrived with heavy black and white speckled hair coats and one had frostbitten ears.
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She admits to knowing next to nothing about them and is curious about how they might fare this summer when daytime temperatures can rise above 35 C with high humidity for 30 straight days.
She judges them to be maternal cattle that grade well.
“All four of the females have lots of meat to them and lots of bone. They don’t look hard doing with yield and carcass but they still look feminine enough,” she said.
During the Houston show, everyone walking by her stall stopped and whipped out their cellphones to get a picture.
“Everybody that walks down this aisle and stops,” she said.
“Nobody takes pictures of anything else in our pens.”
Jason Goodfellow of Notta Ranch owns the four heifers in partnership with Hidden Valley, Greenhaven and Six Star Speckle Park from Australia. Together they form Global Elite Speckle Park and intend to expand the breed in the United States by selling embryos and semen.
“We are going to try and have a show here next year,” he said.
Houston requires at least 35 head to have a show.
This group of heifers will be lent to juniors, who can exhibit them in a program called “I’m in it to win it” show series that starts now and continues until the end of the year. That should give the cattle some exposure along with other promotion work underway.
The heifers will also be flushed later.
Notta Ranch also had bull calf champion at Canadian Western Agribition in Regina. The bull is having semen drawn in Montana and it will go to Brahman breeders in Texas and South America.
The plan is to produce a group of F1 crosses from a Brahman-Speckle Park mating with the intention of improving meat yield and quality. These are called Brockles that maintain the black-and-white colouring as well as some Brahman characteristics.
There are about 8,000 in Australia as well as some major commercial operations with thousands of head.
Embryos have also gone to England.
“If you planned it, it wouldn’t have worked out as good as it has,” Goodfellow said.
Speckle Park was developed in Saskatchewan and was recognized as a distinct breed in 2006.
