Dr. Ron Jones, DDS of Salida, Colorado has been in the Texas Longhorn business for well over a dozen years. He has a beautiful ranch nestled between two huge mountain ranges just west of the historic Arkansas river. Last week I had the privilege of attending an ITLA Mountain States Texas Longhorn Affiliate meeting at Ron’s place. He and his wife Jo did a great job of hosting the annual meeting. We looked over the cow herd, looked through his herd sires, and the people in Colorado were dully impressed. Ron and Jo had started a long range herd plan over a dozen years ago and the results of that plan were clearly evident with the sale of numerous raised cattle for $20,000 to $90,000.
In the mid 80’s Ron bought his first bull from the Dickinson family named Bailer Lin. He was a son of Bail Jumper out of Miss Lin who sold for $40,000 in the mid 80’s. This bull, when bred to Ron’s original cow herd, produced numerous daughters that were champions at the National Western Stock Show and other major shows. A few years later he came to DCC and bought a bull named, Jump Shot, also sired by Bail Jumper out of the famous New Age Cattle Company cow, Royal Spice. Royal Spice has well over 60” horn. This banded a second great female into his pedigrees. In 1992 a bull was raised at DCC called Rangago, by Zhivago out of Over Ranga. Ron purchased this bull and bred him to daughters of Bailer Lin and Jump Shot. At this point the offspring were 1/2 to 3/4 or even 7/8 the exact same blood as other bulls being used at DCC from these very superior bloodlines. In 1994 Ron purchased a bull called, Gun Man. Gun Man is an AI son of G-Man out of a 56” horned five year old Senator daughter named Sizzle. Gun Man is a beautiful black and white speckled bull and was featured in the “Black is Beautiful” article in a recent magazine. Gun Man’s horns are pushing up close to the 60” tip to tip measurement. Many of the young calves born on the Jone’s Ranch in 1998 will be sired by Gun Man, out of daughters of Rangago, who are out of daughters of Jump Shot, out of daughters of Bailer Lin. This long range genetic plan allows many of these fancy calves to be 15/16th DCC proven bloodlines.
It was a refreshing pleasure to see the tremendous success that Ron and Jo Jones have had using DCC bloodlines. At DCC we have people like the Jones’ who rely on us to continually produce future herd sires to keep their genetics on the front cutting edge. We take this responsibility very serious. Each year our past clients come back and acquire new unrelated herd sires. Often they will retain a bull for two, three or four years, then acquire a new DCC bull to breed to his daughters. With the continual breeding of a similar lineage of cattle, a consistent product with long pedigrees can be produced almost exactly parallel to the best DCC genetics.
At DCC each year new and fresh pedigrees are carefully blended in order that semi-unrelated sires can be provided for these faithful clients as they are needed.
Although DCC success has been a result of banded pedigrees, these blends can sway toward the very biggest horned cattle in the breed, the very thickest and beefiest qualities. They can sway toward dark black speckled pedigrees and yet hold the constant genetic family traits.
In the DCC genetic program, every major herd sire is related to other herd sires on the ranch. Famous bulls Over Kill and Tempter are half brothers. Drag Iron and Horn Showcase cow Jam packed are half sibs. This genetic program has been developed and fine tuned for over 50 years.
In the Texas Longhorn industry there will be some wonderful bulls produced by an unplanned, hit or miss Russian roulette genetic process. However, for each one of these that accidentally happen, there will be 20 times more bulls of breed improving quality created from producers who have a long range genetic plan and seriously work to get every piece of the puzzle put together. It is like a giant chess game and the rewards are exciting to us at DCC, that we can be the provider to people like Ron and Jo.
