A:  We began the Brangus Stud in 2011 when we bought 50 heifers from Allan Green whose father imported the first Brangus animals into the country from America.  We decided on Brangus because of their medium size, being naturally polled, ease of calving and good carcase quality. Our breeding policy has been to buy semen from the best local and international bulls for artificial insemination and then use top quality local bulls as “pick-up” bulls. A couple of outstanding cows were also bought, which were superovulated and flushed and the embryos inserted into surrogate cows.  All animals bought are not only selected on their phenotype but also on their EBV’s (genotype). Three years ago when the herd had grown considerably, John Baxter (probably the most experienced Brangus Judge in South Africa) visited us and selected only the exceptional cows to form part of the core herd. John visits us annually to do a super selection after the society inspectors have been, so that only the best animals are retained in the stud. We are also part of the Veld Bull test group where the performance of young bulls is measured and evaluated under natural grazing conditions. We are at the moment growing the stud to the point where we have sufficient animals to be able to host our own annual stud sale of bulls and females from a maximum of 500 stud cows.