Profile of a Santa Gertrudis Bull & Cow
THE SANTA GERTRUDIS BULL
The Santa Gertrudis bull is renowned as one of the industry most efficient beef producers. You will notice immediate improvements with the first calf crop.
The calves will have no trouble at birth with smaller birth weights than most of the recently imported breeds and yet they are renowned for their rapid growth.
The use of a Santa Gertrudis bull will introduce heat tolerance, tick resistance, and most importantly, when crossed with British breeds, an immediate drop in the number of losses due to eye cancer and pink eye.
Santa cattle have the ability to thrive on lush pasture without suffering from bloat – a problem that causes untold losses every year.
Mature Santa Gertrudis bulls weigh in excess of 2,000 pounds with 2,200 to 2,800 pounds not uncommon. The average scrotal circumference is frequently in excess of 40cm.
Weight gain is one of the most highly heritable performance traits in beef cattle. Daily weight gains of Santa Gertrudis bulls are regularly monitored at more than 3.3 pounds per day.
Santa bulls have outstanding foraging ability to thrive even under the harshest conditions and they are noted as very active and athletic sires.
An inherent trait of Bos Indicus is their unlabored gait that enables them to easily cope with long distances to food or water, unlike some European and British breeds.
THE SANTA GERTRUDIS COW
The mature Santa cow can weigh up to 1,650 pounds, she has excellent milking ability with high butterfat content, few calving problems and incompetitive tests has produced consistently larger calf crops than other breeds.
One of the major attractions of Santa Gertrudis female is their longevity. Producers regularly record details of 14 to 15 year-old cows still producing a calf each year without fail. One breeder had a foundation second cross female, which had produced its 18th calf at 21 years-of-age.
Because of this outstanding ability, producers are not forced to continually use replacement heifers; this translates to better gross margins, and more money in your pocket.
The large mature size of the Santa female also provides excellent salvage value.
Their natural mothering instinct is also evident with regular examples of one or two females keeping watch over a large number of calves while the other cows graze.
For establishing a good strong breeding base the Santa Gertrudis female has much to offer.