FROM THE PINEYWOODS

In This Issue

LSU Pineywoods Study

Buy Wisely

Herd Spotlight

Cooking with Piney-

woods

Remembering one of our

own

2016 Annual Meeting

Georgia Chapter of the

PCRBA

Cooking with Pineywoods Pineywoods Beef Mini Meat Loaves

1 lb Pineywoods ground beef

1/2 onion chopped

1 bell pepper chopped

salt & pepper

Italian seasoning

Mix well and form into small shaped meatloaf.

Place in pan in oven, bake at 350 till brown or loose red

color. Put in crock pot with 1 can of tomato sauce or your

favorite spaghetti sauce. Great with homemade mashed

potatoes.

Enjoy!

Julie Brown Cowpen Creek Farm

PCRBA Spring/Summer 2016 Volume 11 Number 1

We hope you enjoy the PCRBA

newsletter,

From The Pineywoods. If you

have recipes, questions, or in-

formation you would like to

share about the newsletter,

send them to Ken at

longwoodcreek@gmail.com.

Thanks and Enjoy!

2016 Annual Meeting

Vic and Flo Boyles of Bogalusa,

LA have graciously invited

members & friends of the

PCRBA to their farm for our

Annual Meeting on Saturday,

April 16, 2016.

Kindly RSVP by April 9, 2016 to

Secretary Julie Brown 601-795-

4672 or juliebrown51@att.net

Location: Boyles Farm, 1499

Paul Road, Bogalusa, LA 70427

Time: Meeting at 11:00 AM,

lunch at noon provided by the

Boyles family.

Farm tour to follow.

Nearby Accommodations:

Travelers Rest Motel

1730 Sullivan Drive

Bogalusa, LA 70427

985-735-7772

Magnolia Garden Inn & Suites,

1640 S. Columbia St., Bogalusa,

LA 70427, 985-732-0369

Reminder:

Dues for the PCRBA were due in January. Please remit payment

and updated contact information to PCRBA Secretary.

Georgia Chapter of the PCRBA

We are starting a GA Chapter of the PCRBA for the growing

number of Georgia members. Our first meeting was March

12th at Longwood Creek Farm. If you are in the Georgia area and wish to be a part of the

Georgia chapter of the PCRBA email Ken at

longwoodcreek@gmail.com to be placed on our email list.

Pineywoods Cattle in LSU Study

Dr. Guillermo Scaglia, ruminant nutritionist at Louisiana State University, has received two grants for a multi-

year, breed type study that will include Pineywoods Cattle. He will evaluate Pineywoods steers alongside Hol-

stein and Angus-influenced steers in his forage-fed beef program. The study will give PCRBA valuable infor-

mation on the breed's performance from pasture to plate and includes everything from average daily gains on

pasture to blind taste tests.

The USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Resource and Education (SARE) program and the National Institute of

Food and Agriculture are funding the study, which focuses on year-round grass-fed beef production in the

Gulf South. Dr. Scaglia plans to harvest the steers at strategic intervals to determine what ages and forage pro-

files generate the best product. He will record carcass data from each steer and test the beef for its nutritional

profile, which includes fat content, fatty acid content, and tenderness. He will also examine production eco-

nomics and marketing concerns to help producers optimize their operations and better meet the public's grow-

ing demand for grass-fed beef.

Due to the nature of grant funding, we were on short notice to provide steers for the project this year. Dr.

Scaglia received twenty steers, the majority of them Hickman and Conway Strains. The steers used were

100% grass-fed, castrated, weaned, and approximately eight to ten months old in October. The steers are graz-

ing at LSU's Iberia Research Station in Jeanerette, which is in South Central Louisiana.

Sarah Bailly

Photo Caption: Bruce Conway Courtesy of Hoss Conway

Remembering One of Our

Own

Bruce Franklin Conway of the

Conway line of Pineywoods died

May 2nd, 2015. It is always sad

when someone close to us passes

away. When that person played

such an important role in preserv-

ing this rare breed, it makes his

passing an even bigger loss. Our

thoughts and prayers are with the

Conway family.

Photo Caption

Pineywoods Cattle – Buy Wisely

D. P. Sponenberg

Pineywoods cattle are an important genetic resource for the deep south, but will only continue to be important if they are carefully bred and maintained. Purity is important. The Pineywoods is one of a handful of Iberian-derived breeds. Through quirks of history they were brought to Mississippi and adjoining states. The Iberian root of the breed is important, because Iberian cattle are unlike cattle anywhere else in the world. They come from an old, old African and European root. The importance of this is that crossbreeding works extremely well with them, but you need the purebreds to produce those crossbreds! Any contamination of the pure re-source leads to decreases in production on down into the future. We need to guard the breed purity jealously.

When buying Pineywoods cattle, be sure to evaluate the cattle and the story behind them. Buy from reputable breeders, and buy registered cattle. In the old days of herds of 1500 or so, multiple bulls in a herd made sense. In today’s world it is best to have single bulls, and for pedigrees to be carefully kept. That is the key to main-taining this breed into the future.

Be suspicious of herds that run Pineywoods cows with multiple bulls, especially if those bulls include any that are not Pineywoods. Depending on breed, and on your ability to detect crossbreeding, the calves may or may not be purebred. Use your eyes and your brain-—the looks of the herd should match the story that is told. If it does not, something is wrong with the story!

Some breeders do crossbreed, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as crossbreds do not make it into the registry. The few breeders that track crossbreds have also produced calves that are ¾ Pineywoods, and in many cases these are very close matches to purebred Pineywoods cattle. The lesson here is that it is important that ONLY Pineywoods bulls be used on Pineywoods cows if the calves are destined to be registered as pure-breds. Any crossbreds should be carefully identified, and all males castrated and sold for beef.

Occasionally breeders will encounter good candidate cows in sale barns. The one-off cow that turns up is sus-pect, unless the herd of origin is known and some of the history of the herd is known. The odd single cow that “looks right,” coming through a local sales barn, is a huge risk to the breed and to the breeder. A cow from a herd with the right history, looks, and background is important to the breed, and it is important to find these whenever we can. But, the essential element here is that the herd should be evaluated, and the history should make sense. It is always best to evaluate a herd rather than an individual animal. Individual animals can fool you, while herds can do that only rarely or never. These “surprise” cows that are purebred are increasingly ra-re, and most of the purebred Pineywoods cattle are now in documented herds.

With careful attention to breeding and buying in cattle, this breed can continue to make contributions on into

the future.

Photo Caption: Bruce Conway Courtesy Hoss Conway

Herd Spotlight

In this section, we will take a look at different PCRBA members and their herd. Today we take a look at Freddie

Brinson and his Palmer-Dunn herd.

The Brinson Pineywoods Herd: My Story

By: Freddie Brinson

The Brinson Pineywoods herd is located in Jenkins County, Georgia about 10 miles northeast of the small

town of Millen. The herd numbers about 40 head and is mainly Palmer-Dunn or percentage Palmer-Dunn. Since

most of the cattle have Palmer-Dunn blood, most are polled (hornless). There are several animals with no Palmer-

Dunn blood---those few are mainly composites of other strains. Today, regardless of where a Pineywoods herd is

located and regardless of the strains that make it up, the Pineywoods breeder has a story about his herd of cattle.

This is my story about my Palmer-Dunn herd of Pineywoods.

I grew up around cows, especially modern commercial breeds. Since we had cattle and other livestock, I often

went to the local livestock market with my father on Monday afternoons. This was the high point of my week

when I was a child. To me there was nothing better than seeing that large number of cows, goats and hogs in one

place. But the cattle interested me the most. Many times there would be a pen with a number of very colorful

cattle which were different from the majority there. These cattle definitely were not Angus, Hereford or any other

breed that I saw on most of the farms around the county. Each week that I went to the "Sale," I looked for those

colorful cattle, but over time there were fewer and fewer of them. There were two elderly people in the county

who had a very small number of cows like those colorful cows that I saw at the market. But when those two el-

derly people died, their cows were taken to the market and then there were no farmers that I knew personally who

had any of those colorful cows. When I asked my father what kind of cows those were, he said that they were

"scrub cows." I had already heard other people use the expression in describing certain cows. They appeared to

use the word "scrub" in a negative way---as if they meant that the cows were mongrel cows of very little value.

But the cattle still interested me regardless of what they were called.

As time passed, I grew up and went to college. I studied American History and eventually became a teacher in

the local school system. I acquired some property that relatives had owned for well over 100 years and began an

Angus cattle herd. Teaching school and raising cattle consumed most of my time but I enjoyed it. Each year in

American History class, I taught about the Spanish explorers coming to America and their bringing livestock and

other provisions with them. By this time, I had learned that those colorful cattle that I had seen at the livestock

market years ago were remnants of what the Spanish explorers had brought to America. I also had learned that

there were still some descendents of those Spanish cattle in certain places in the Southeast. As I taught American

History and raised my Angus cattle, it gradually came to me that if there still were some cattle like those at the

Monday sales many years earlier, I should try to find them and buy a few. For 10 years, I thought of looking for

some of those cattle and buying some, but never acted on the idea. One day, I ordered a small paperback book put

out by The Livestock Conservancy (it was known by a different name then) and this little book sparked my inter-

est in those so called "scrub" cattle like never before. I decided that it was now or never regarding finding some

of those cattle that I liked to look at as a young boy.

As I began to search for some of those "Pineywoods" cattle, I learned that there was a relatively new organiza-

tion called the Pineywoods Cattle Registry and Breeders Association and they had just established a web site on

the internet. Through the information on the site and information I found in publications, as well as information I

got by making phone calls, I learned that there were different family lines or strains of these cattle.

Photo Freddie Brinson’s Palmer-Dunn herd. Photo Courtesy of Freddie Brinson

I especially liked the looks of the Palmer-Dunn and the Conway Pineywoods strains. Mitchel Amason and Vir-

gil Berry in Mississippi had plenty of the Conways and when I called them they said that had a number of

young heifers for sale. But when I called Mrs. Muriel Palmer-Dunn who lived near State Line, Mississippi

about her line of Pineywoods, she said that she no longer had any cattle because she had recently sold all of

them to the Overstreet-Kerr Historical Farm in Oklahoma. This was very disappointing to me because I wanted

some of them even more than I wanted the Conways. She said that since she was now past 80, she had to let

them go and she felt that Jim Combs who was Manager of the Historical Farm would take good care of them.

By just talking to her about her line of cattle made me want some of those cattle more than ever. I hoped that

somehow and some way I would be able to get some of her line of cattle later.

I made plans to go to Mississippi and buy some Conway cattle. But I wanted to disperse my entire Angus

herd first. I did not want to try to have both on the farm---I knew that if I kept some Angus, I would end up

with some cattle that were not pure Pineywoods. I soon found a buyer for all my Angus and then finalized

plans to get some young Conway heifers from the Amason and Berry herds. I wanted to purchase just-weaned

heifers so that by the time they matured and calved, they would know me and I would know their dispositions.

I bought 5 heifers from the Amason farm and 7 from the Berry farm. After the Angus were gone and the Con-

way heifers occupied my front pasture, they got the attention of neighbors, friends and just passers-by. Repeat-

edly, I was asked, "What are they, are they Longhorns or Corrientes?" I explained that they were Pineywoods

cattle and were somewhat related to the Longhorns and Corrientes. Each time that I explained what they were,

I also said that they once were common around here. I was proud of my new breed of cattle.

As the heifers matured, I knew I needed to give serious consideration to what bull I was going to use. By

this time, I had not only communicated with Mrs. Muriel Palmer-Dunn several times about her line of cattle,

but I had also communicated several times with Jim Combs who was the Manager at the Overstreet-Kerr His-

torical Farm. Jim said that they had collected semen from a young bull that was in Mrs. Muriel Palmer-Dunn's

herd. I really wanted to get semen from that bull that was called "Rascal" and breed him to my heifers. Jim

agreed to let me have some of the Rascal semen. Several years earlier, I had learned to artificially inseminate

cattle in hopes of improving my Angus herd, so I knew what this type of breeding could do for a cattle herd.

Because I considered every straw of the Rascal semen so important, and because I had only a limited number of

straws, I brought in the man who had taught me how to inseminate cattle. He is one of the best A. I. technicians

in the state. We inseminated 10 of the heifers and got 9 calves. That was the most beautiful and uniform group

of calves that I had ever seen.

I shared the news about the Rascal calves with Jim and Mrs. Muriel all along the way. Mrs. Muriel and I had a

number of phone conversations about the cows she had raised and about that bull that was producing calves for

me. Earlier, I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Muriel and sit on her front porch and listen to her talk about her

cows. I enjoyed every minute of it. Her pastures were empty, but as she talked, I could almost see her cows out

there grazing. I learned the names of a number of her cows that I thought I would never see in person, but she

made them real to me. The photos that I shared with Mrs. Muriel of the calves sired by the bull she produced on

her farm were the last photos she ever got from me. As soon as all the calves were born, I took photos of them,

rushed to have them developed, and put them in the mail to her. I wanted her to see the calves that "her" bull

had produced and I wanted her to see them immediately. I could have waited to send the photos to her but be-

cause I was proud of those calves and because I felt that I should not wait to send the photos, I spent an entire

day making sure the photos went out by late afternoon. They were mailed to her on a Wednesday, she got them

on Friday, and showed them to her nephew that Friday evening. I was told that she was extremely proud of

those calves. Mrs. Muriel and I never talked about the photos---because she had a stroke late in the evening after

getting the photos. She died a few days later. I am so glad that I felt the urgency to get those photos in the mail

to her when I did.

There was other unsettling news for me. Besides Mrs. Muriel's death, Jim Combs had retired as Manager of the

Overstreet-Kerr Historical Farm where Mrs. Muriel's cows were located. He was no longer in charge of caring

for those cows. In fact, the Kerr Center decided to sell the Historical Farm and move the cows to other Kerr

Center property. This was all disappointing to me because I could no longer talk to Mrs. Muriel about her cows

in the past or talk to Jim about how they were doing in the present. To make things worse, there was a severe

drought underway in Oklahoma which greatly affected the Palmer-Dunn herd as well as other Kerr Center cattle.

I continued to communicate with Jim Combs and also personnel at the Kerr Center regarding the cattle. In one

of my conversations with the Kerr Center, and during the time of the extreme drought, I was offered the oppor-

tunity to buy what remained of Mrs. Muriel's herd. I could not believe it. There was no thinking it over---my

answer was yes, I wanted the Palmer-Dunns. I already knew the Palmer-Dunn cows by name and knew a lot of

their history. I had not seen them but I had visualized them in Mrs. Muriel's pastures as she talked about them

and as Jim had told me of his experiences with them. I wanted them and wanted to bring them to Georgia as

soon as possible. The Kerr Center offered the Palmer-Dunn herd to me at a very reasonable price and I made

arrangements for a hauler to bring them to my farm. When the cows arrived, it was an emotional time for me

and a time of relief for the cows to finally get off that trailer. As they exited the trailer, one by one, I was seeing

them in person for the first time. But I recognized each one because I had heard so much about them. It was as

if they had come from the farm down the road instead of a thousand miles away. That day I made a promise to

myself that none of the cows would ever get on another trailer---they had been hauled from Mrs. Muriel's farm

near State Line, Mississippi to the Historical Farm in Oklahoma, and now to my farm in Georgia. But no more,

they would live out the rest of their lives with me and I have kept that promise. The next time I went to Missis-

sippi, I visited Mrs. Muriel's grave site and felt the need to talk about where her cows now were. But I did not, I

felt like she knew it already.

The last few years have been a time of enjoying my Palmer-Dunn cattle herd. All of Mrs. Muriel's cows have

had several calves for me and I think of each calf as being special, not only because most of them are polled but

because they originated from the farm of a special lady who lived in Mississippi. On my farm, I have added a

separate all black Pineywoods herd. I have done this because many earlier Pineywoods breeders have selected

against this color. But my Palmer-Dunn herd is priority one for me. I am sure that I baby them too much, but I

think Mrs. Muriel would probably say "they're yours now, just take good care of them." I try to do that---for her

and for the sake of the strain of Pineywoods cattle that bears her name.

Georgia National Fair

The Georgia PCRBA is looking to have a booth at the

Georgia National Fair in Perry as part of the Beef Story

of Agriculture exhibit. This exhibit is put on every year

by the Georgia Cattleman’s Association. The Georgia

National Fair is a big event. Last year they brought in

over 500,000 people. We think this is a great opportunity

to tell our story. We are even working on having some

halter broke cattle at the fair. The fair is held in Perry,

GA and runs from October 6 - 16, 2016.

Photo Courtesy of Longwood Creek Farm

I hope you enjoyed this edition of

news From The Pineywoods.

Thanks,

Ken

Georgia Chapter of the PCRBA

Next Meeting.

The GA PCRBA is looking to

have its next meeting at Grove

Creek Farm in June located in

Crawford, GA. Take a look at

Grove Creek Farm at

www.grovecreekfarm.org