Pharo Cattle Company has had Angus, Red Angus and Polled Hereford cattle with substantial heat tolerance for most of two decades.   For the past ten years, we have been experimenting with the creation of a slick-haired, heat-tolerant composite that would be even more suited to climates with high heat and humidity.

To date, we are most satisfied with the results of breeding our slick-haired Red Angus females to Mashona bulls.   Mashona is an indigenous breed from Africa that originated with the Shona people in Zimbabwe.   The breed was developed under natural selection without any external inputs for thousands of years in an extremely harsh and unforgiving environment.   Mashona cattle have very low maintenance requirements.   They are very fertile and easy fleshing.

Mashona cattle are highly mobile grazers that have the ability to browse.   They have early carcass maturity and finish well on grass.   Mashona excel in hot and/or humid environments with low-quality forages.   They work well on endophyte infected fescue.   They have a very high resistance to parasites and disease.   Best of all, Mashona is a Bos Taurus breed.   They are much more efficient and much more fertile than Bos Indicus (Brahman) cross cattle.

We sold our first set of Heat-Tolerant Composite bulls this past spring at our Texas Bull Sale.   The bulls were very well received.   Click on the link below to see an 18-month-old bull that is 50% Red Angus and 50% Mashona.   Notice his outstanding hair coat (video was taken in February).   This bull’s name is Diamond.   We will be using him back in our heat-tolerant program.

Diamond

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