BEEFMASTER SECTION
Performance Matters at Swinging B Ranch
Self-described ‘number nut’ Mackie Bounds researched, studied and tested his way from a commercial cow herd to an award winning Beefmaster seedstock herd
By Ellen H. Brisendine A
BOUT 20 YEARS AGO, TEENAGED KENT BOUNDS TOLD his parents Mackie and Norma Jean that he wanted to start showing cattle, and his breed
of choice was Beefmaster. Mackie says, “Beefmaster wasn’t my fi rst choice of breed, but you don’t tell your teenage son ‘no’ when you want him involved in some- thing. So we went and bought him a Beefmaster. That was our fi rst Beefmaster. Now we’re pushing 400 head and I don’t see a stopping point,” he says. Mackie and Norma Jean Bounds, Swinging B Ranch,
Axtell, were named the 2013 Beefmaster Breeders of the Year by Beefmaster Breeders United (BBU). This honor recognizes producers who concentrate on improving the genetics of economically valuable traits in their purebred stock. Mackie is also vice president of BBU. Mackie is a student of rock — the masonry kind,
not necessarily the musical kind. He continues his suc- cessful masonry and construction enterprises and he, Norma Jean, manager Johnny Landfried and herdsman Cesar Rodriguez take care of the cattle herds. Rodriguez joined the ranch in late 2013. Landfried accompanied Bounds into ranching from the masonry
70 The Cattleman March 2014
and construction businesses, enjoying a decades-long friendship with the family. Bounds started with commercial cattle on his ranch
east of the town of West. “I loved F1 tiger stripe cattle and still do,” he says of his early herd. “One day, I will probably have a herd of F1s beside the Beefmaster to use as recipient cows.” That teenaged son is now 31 years old, so why did
Mackie and Norma Jean stay with a breed that wasn’t their fi rst choice? “Two things,” he answers, “fi rst being the cattle.
I was so impressed with how gentle they were, with their milking ability and how they could withstand the weather conditions — hot or cold.” Mackie says Beefmaster producers have been vocal about how heat-tolerant the breed is and should be just as vocal about the breed’s tolerance for cold. “I’ve found that the Beefmaster cattle are truly the best of both worlds, great females and great bulls,” he says. The second deciding factor, Mackie says, has been
the people of the Beefmaster community. “It’s kind of like a big family and everybody’s trying to help each
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