About El Rancho de Trabajo
About Gary Markham
Gary Markham grew up in the Texas
Panhandle in Motley County, surrounded by
the Matador Ranch and its neighbors, the
Spur, the 6666's, the Pitchfork, the JA's,
and many other large ranches. There was a
lot of land and not many people, but a lot
of beef cows. It was a good place to learn
to like cows.
Start of El Rancho de Trabajo
About ten years ago, Gary bought some
land about twenty miles south of Houston to
build a house on. Needing some cattle to run
on the rest of the place, longtime friend
and fellow Aggie, Bruce Buffaloe, sold Gary
his first Red Brangus heifers. Bruce even
threw in the use of some Red Brangus bulls
(needing to get them off his pasture and
onto someone else's during the drought).
Bruce kept selling Gary more cows. Before
long Gary had to buy some more adjacent land
to run all his cows and Bruce's bulls on.
Then he needed more cows, and so on.
Fortunately, Bruce had plenty of good Red
Brangus cows to sell, and there was more
land to be bought. Gary's father-in-law, Bob
Tollett, came up with the name "El Rancho de
Trabajo" one hot and humid summer day while
they were building fence. At that time we
thought it might have been El Rancho de
'MUCHO' Trabajo. A rancho is a small ranch
that requires a lot of work.
El Rancho de Trabajo grows up
When the Genetic Edge IV Sale occurred in
March 1999 Gary had to be in New York on
business. No problem. Bruce was there and
conversed with Gary over their cell phones
to buy more registered Red Brangus heifers
for Gary. Included in those was the show
heifer, Miss Oak Creek 280F, a Premier
daughter never beaten in her class in over
120 shows across the state on the junior
show circuit. She has won championships in
Houston, the Belt Buckle Bonanza and the
Fall Classic, including Champion American
Heifer at the Central Texas Fair and Reserve
Champion Overall at Fort Bend County Fair
TCCA Show. She had a bull calf by her side,
out of Mr. UV Jackson 41/D. Jackson was the
high selling bull at the sale. Fortunately,
Bruce hauled this cow home to his Buffaloe
Cattle Company ranch in Victoria, where she
was bred to the two time Grand Champion Red
Brangus Bull, CX Chief Cardinal 847/G.
Another bull calf, GM Mustang Chief 280/K,
resulted from this mating. Thank you Don and
Bruce!
Steadily Growing!
The next year Gary bought nine of the
best Red Brangus heifers at the 2000 Genetic
Edge V Sale in Houston, and later three more
from Dennis Kmiec's Triangle K Farms. During
this time Gary also acquired a possession
interest in the bull, CX Mr. Powerdrive
269/G, a half brother to the bull that was
to be grand champion at both San Antonio and
Houston in 2001.
At the 2001 Genetic Edge VI Sale in
Houston Gary bought three more of the best
Red Brangus heifers, including BCC JR Inca
Maiden 22/J, which Bruce Buffaloe said was
the best heifer he had ever produced. She
came bred to CX Powerman 307/H, who was the
2001 Grand Champion Red Brangus Bull at both
the San Antonio and Houston open shows. A
bull calf, GM Bruce 22J/L, was born last
September. He is going to be a good one.
El Rancho gets help
While Gary was increasing his cow herd,
Joe Taylor came to be foreman and help Gary
take care of them. Joe grew up on a ranch in
Eastern New Mexico. Like the Texas
Panhandle, it was a good place to learn to
like cows. Joe appreciates the "trabajo" in
our name more than Gary. He works with the
cows every day.
Our Breeding Philosophy
We run our cows on mostly native gulf
coast pastures, because we believe that is
what most cow-calf producers in our area do.
We try to keep the cows that do best on the
native forage and pass that ability on to
their offspring. Purebred cattle that have
been pampered all their lives on knee-deep
irrigated and fertilized grass may not do
too well when put out in the typical gulf
coast prairie, especially in a dry year. We
want to sell breeding cattle that will do
what the Red Brangus breed is supposed to do
- thrive and do well in our hot, humid,
sometimes dry in the summertime and wet in
the winter, climate. We feed supplemental
hay and range cubes in the winter, but make
them eat native grasses the rest of the
year.
Come on out to El Rancho de Trabajo
anytime and you can help us with el trabajo
or just visit and look at some of the best
Red Brangus cattle in the breed. |
