.
My brother’s prize Brahma bull just happened to socialize with some of our young dairy heifers
One Brahma-Jersey heifer result would go under fence if before she could not jump them
Angus (not all black - there are red Angus too) are mostly a gentle well-mannered breed
Breed a Brahma to an Angus and you have a devil in your pasture - dunno why - nasty result - most cattlemen know of this
Santa Gertrudis (King Ranch) are not as bad as Brahmas or Brangus
There is also the Beefalo - no much of popular breed
Whiteface always seemed to be a problem with screwworms and eye infections in South Florida
Brahmas could usually thrive on sandland pasture when other breeds would lose weight and require pasture like the high nitrogen mucklands around Belle Glade (another great auction and show facility there)
Someone on the road where I grew up had a small herd of Santa Gertrudis. Very handsome critters, some tame enough to accept petting over the fence.
I’d never seen or heard of Brangus til I moved out here 30 minutes away. Had no idea about the bad disposition to come with the mix.
Before I moved here, the same neighbor who had the Brangus behind me raised rodeo roping steers. He’s been hooked in the thigh by one aiming for one of the blue heelers, was also protected by his dogs when he had his heart attack in the paddock with them.
Back to the subject of this thread, a pack of dogs gone feral offered themselves up to my neighbor a few years ago. You can hear the coyotes yipping out there in the bottoms, but it’s the packed-up dogs that give one pause out here. The last one of those dogs to charge him was so close he ended up having to bludgeon it to death with a $600 rifle. (Ah, I think I’ve just figured out why he uses shotguns to the exclusion of all else these days!) He says at the time his daughter was 9, and at first she screamed at him to not shoot the doggies. You can imagine his terror that they bypass him and keep going for her.
Oh, one more tale of cattle. I used to work with a fella who raised a herd of Longhorns. It began with not wanting to mow all his acreage, y’see... Well, whoever among them developed a nasty disposition would be next on offer as halves and quarters on the work bulletin board. Jac didn’t put up with dangerous animals. Too, he has an African Watutsi bull, and raised an American bison as a big ole pet. Billy was an amiable bison until the day he walked out of a gate that was left open. Some moron tried to trap him against a fence with their truck. He went into such a rage that, tho he eventually wound up back in his own pasture, he was too busy trying to gore Jac and his brother for them to get the gate shut. About that time at least one LEO had arrived, and my friend asked him to shoot the bison so they could rush his brother to the hospital. No regrets on that decision, but it bothered him they didn’t leave Billy’s carcass there for him to bury (or whatever) himself. Despite the damage, he didn’t hold a grudge. He said he’d be ready to kick somebody’s butt, too, if they drove him into a fence.