Barber Hereford heifers are sold in December at Superior Livestock in Fort Worth’s Historic Stockyards. Their heifers go all over the U.S. and sell into Central and South America.
Terri says, “and they’re phenomenal on other breeds.” The Barbers started out with horned Herefords, but
when their oldest son, Brett, went off to Michigan State, most of the Hereford cattle in the north were polled and they began dabbling with some of the polled genetics. When it came time for their twin sons to enter the
show ring, because they didn’t want one to knock the other out, Dale and Mary got serious about developing that perfect polled animal. They were quite successful. In fact, Barber Ranch is considered a pioneer by many because they were the fi rst to successfully combine the 2 genetic lines. “In 2014, our polled bulls out-averaged our horned
bulls by a $1,000 a head,” says Dale. The Barbers incorporate all the latest technology in
their operation, but Mary admits she was quite content before EPDs came onto the scene. “AI (artifi cial insemination) made better genetics
available to everyone,” she says, “but it sure hurt bull sales there for a while.” They understood that to stay at the front of the pack
they had to get on board and they did so quickly, both learning the technique. “That fi rst AI calf that was born because of me I
just nearly handed out cigars,” Mary quips. Dale says the best and biggest change in his tenure
100 The Cattleman August 2016
is the embryo technology. Mary recalls fellow Hereford breeder, the late Wayne Haygood, Indian Mound Ranch, Canadian, telling her that to stay at the forefront they’d have to use embryo transplants in the best cows. He was right. “No one wants an average cow,” Mary says. Like many registered operations, the Barber Ranch
puts embryos in other people’s cows and then they buy those calves back at weaning. “All this technology allows us to propagate the best,”
says Dale, “but mistakes are very expensive. Just be- cause they’re embryo transplants doesn’t always mean they’re good. You can breed the best of the best but you don’t always get the best.” Early on, the Barbers hosted their annual bull sale at
the ranch. They struggled some though. There wasn’t much of a market for bulls because so many Panhandle operations had switched to stocker yearlings. They had been going to the all-breed bull sales in
Houston and San Antonio for a number of years and in so doing they developed a market for their bulls in that part of the state. Thus in the mid-2000s, they made a strategic decision to move their sale to the Hill Country, where it is held in November at Jordan Cattle Auction in San Saba. “The biggest part of our bulls go on Brahman cows
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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