Our Philosophy

Our Breeding Philosophy:

Although we truly respect the breeding plans of great Japanese breeders such as Shogo Takeda and others, we believe that the USA beef and cattle industry offers new challenges for the Wagyu cattle.  
 

First in Japan, most Wagyu calves are creep fed at 2 months of age and mothers are confined to pens rather than pastures as we see in the USA cattle industry.  Pastures in Japan are used for raising crops such as rice and the only grazing areas are on mountainsides which raise too much risk for the Japanese cattleman at loss of his cows.  Thus, the wagyu cattle are raised in pens on full feed with their calves. 

In America and other parts of the world such as Europe and Australia, cattle are raised in pastures eating a multitude of forages.  They are not confined eating high quality grains as this is not cost effective to feed cattle 24/7 their entire lives.  

Thus, we must study closely our 3 main strains to black wagyu to understand our most suitable solution to solve this issue:

1) Tajima/Kobe Strain
2) Fujiyoshi/Shimane Strain
3) Kedaka strain from Tottori Prefecture

Tajima/Kobe

These are the smallest of the 3 main strains brought to the USA. Tajima Strength is their ability to produce the snow white marbling.  This is the only strain in Japan that can be called Kobe Beef.

Bulls from this region include 068 and kikayasu 400.

Tajima weakness is they have the least milk, smallest frame, smallest ribeye, lowest weaning weights, and lowest feed conversion.  This strain will particularly struggle raising calves in a pasture setting as they were never bred to do so in Japan.  

Shimane/Fujiyoshi Strain

The Shimane strain are larger framed with much better maternal traits.  Farmers from this region of Japan sought out the best genetics from other regions to produce these cattle.  Superior milk and growth were targeted by farmers. Weakness of these cattle is marbling is less than the other two strains. 
Bulls from this region include Itomichi and Hiratafuji 402.

Kedaka Strain from Tottori Region 

The cattle in this group mostly come from genetics of Kedaka whom was a top bull from the 1950's.  They are the largest framed cattle of the 3 strains that have great maternal and growth characteristics.  They also marble very well.  

Thus, our philosophy for raising quality American Kobe/Wagyu cattle is to concentrate on the two larger framed cattle strains.

The problem:

There are only two bulls semen that has ever been available that are primarily from the Kedaka/Tottori strains:
 

A) Shigefuku 005-Born in 1986.  Never left Japan.  Only his semen left Japan.

B) Mazda-Original Import from 1976 of Morris Whitney.  About 30 units is estimated to still exist in 2017 and currently sells for $4500/unit if you can find it.  We are one of the only ranches to own mazda semen and embryos. Contact us for embryos available.