But there sure were quite a few folks heaping some rather lavish praise on old tapeworm about his little, functional cow when he originally posted that picture a few months ago. She's certainly not all that much to look at (say, compared to ollie's RA) but I bet she does wean off a good calf like clockwork each year. She at least has nice depth, even though she seems to be missing a few ribs. I actually see a lot of cattle in my neck of the woods that look very similar to her, and I've got a few myself that could be her "littermates", so to speak, and they wean off very good calves each year. But I also do see a helluva lot down here that "look" quite a bit better, some of which have Brahman blood running through their veins and some that don't.
Problem with old tapeworm is that he apparently thinks that just about anything with some ear or hump is automatically "sorry". I think he's just plain wrong --- but then he doesn't raise cattle in the deep south or south Texas environment (well, at least we can only assume so, since he hasn't felt comfortable enough to even post his location, after all this time). Clearly, there are some "sorry" cattle in the South and Texas, but that's not merely by virtue of being Brahman crossbreds. We've all seen them! In my roaming around I see a lot of really fine cattle (English, Continental and "American"), but I also see a goodly number of hatchet assed, light boned, mongrelized, horned, inbred stuff --- you know, the type that brings to mind the cattle one usually sees in movies with a setting in Mexico or the desert southwest. And too often, even in non-drought times, I see pastures way overstocked and the cattle sure look it. That's the sort of stuff we should all be disenchanted with. But does anybody really believe those kind of cattle are unique to the South?
Now, I reckon tapeworm will never win an award for diplomacy, but in most instances I'll take a straight shooter over a diplomat, as long as what is being shot isn't just a lot of hot air. Alas, tapeworm's recent writings would leave one with the impression that only the South is home to "sorry" cattle. I wonder if he's really done any extensive traveling throughout the country and actually taken a good look at cattle operations all over, or if he's just prone to armchair pontificating and deriding us poor folks down south ;-)
Hey tape, in the interest of cattle science, how about rounding up some really good, representative Herefords and Angus, say from the big name outfits in Nebraska, Montana, Alberta, etc. and then pasture them for 4 or 5 years down in the pear flats of south Texas or the swamps of Louisiana. Then, after those few years let's compare them, and their offspring (and the cash profits or losses therefrom) to their northern "home place" brethren. Hell, you might prove to all of us idiot Southerners & Texans that there is absolutely no need for any Brahman influence down here after all, and the cattle industry will be the better for it!