Santa Gertrudis

Santa Gertrudis is a beef cattle breed developed on the King Ranch in south Texas in the early twentieth century, widely regarded as the first beef cattle breed developed in the United States. It was bred by crossing Shorthorn cattle with Brahman cattle, arriving at an animal roughly five-eighths Shorthorn and three-eighths Brahman, combining the Shorthorn's beef quality with the Brahman's tolerance for heat, humidity and cattle ticks. The breed was formally recognized in the 1940s and proved well suited to the hot, humid conditions of the Gulf Coast and other subtropical cattle-raising regions, later spreading to other parts of the Americas, Australia and Africa. Santa Gertrudis remains associated with the King Ranch, one of the largest ranches in the United States, where the breed originated.