It’s the Pitts: My Head Hurts
I receive a lot of cowy periodicals from publishers who run my column, and I try to read every one of them. I even read the farm magazines that don’t concern cows, because I’ve always found every facet of agriculture interesting.
My interest dates all the way back to high school where we had a library in the ag building. I spent a lot of lunch hours reading all of the farm and ranch publications like the Western Livestock Journal and the Livestock Market Digest.
Little did I know, one day I’d actually own one of those papers – the Digest.
I even read Hoards Dairyman, and I always tried to place the judging class they had in every issue. However, after a while I began to feel like a pervert checking out all of the cow udders.
I loved looking at bull photos, and I tried to memorize all of the important herd sires.
My bedroom at home – which was actually a sunporch doubling as my mom’s sewing room – was covered in bull pictures, and I often wondered what her customers who came for fittings thought of all the bulls leering at them as they tried on their new clothes.
Back when we didn’t have expected progeny differences (EPDs), beef cattle were mostly evaluated on their phenotype, and as a junior member of the American Angus Association, I sent away for three free posters depicting what an ideal Angus bull, cow and steer should look like.
These became the centerpiece of my art collection.
As a sophomore in high school I could rattle off all the names of the best sires, but then the continental breed explosion hit, and with 35 breeds, I became more confused than President Joe Biden.
Today I can’t even keep up with all of the purebred ranch names. There’s Man Herefords, Halfmann Red Angus and Assman Land and Cattle – I bet they like cattle with big butts.
There’s a King Ranch in Texas, California and New Mexico, and there’s a Bear Creek, Wolf Creek and Oak Creek – not to be confused with Town Creek.
The famed R.A. Brown Ranch in Texas breeds some of the best red and black bulls but no brown ones, while Redd Ranches in Paradox, Colo. is known for its Red Angus, red Gelbvieh and red Simmental.
There’s both a Funk and Fink who have among the finest purebred herds in America. The Funk family owns Express Ranches, and the Fink Family owns Fink Family Genetics.
As I slowly lose my memory, one can see how I could get Dudley Brothers and Nunley Brothers confused, as well as the 12 Star and 5 Star.
Don’t even get me started on the subject of black Herefords, miniature Angus or genetically-enhanced EPDs. How is anyone supposed to remember all of the EPDs for every breed?
A person can’t compare numbers across breeds unless they know calculus, and every time I finally figure out what good numbers are for the Angus breed, they come up with a bunch of new numbers, not to mention new categories.
What really blows my mind is all of these purebred outfits have to come up with hundreds of thousands of new names for the cattle they register. I don’t know how the biggest outfits come up with 2,000 or more names for their registered cattle every year.
I know one ranch named their cattle after U.S. presidents one year and football players another year. Baxter Black even had a bull named after him, and he told me he considered it his highest honor.
Another publication I studied in our ag library was the Quarter Horse Journal, because one local horseman donated all of his past copies.
I love horse names the best and often find them funny – like Peptoboonsmal.
Over the years, I’ve kept a list of names I’d use if I ever became a big-time Quarter Horse breeder, and here’s just a sampling – Who Flung Dung, Bedpan, Neutered, Abadapple, Better Than Terrible, Gesundheit, Pie Biter, The Flatulator, Horse Remorse, It’s Only Money, Jorge Palomino, Hubba Hubba, Stew Meat, 4DBirdz, Back Seat Driver, Lucky Sperm and Crow Bait.
If you ever see a racehorse at the track with any of these names, you’ll know it’s me. So if you want to double your money, just take the cash you were going to bet, fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
