Why Farmers Can’t Stop Talking About This Breed Of Cattle

Why are farmers everywhere talking about this specific breed of cattle? Most ranchers think success means buying proven genetics, the breeds everyone else uses, and pushing for size and growth. But this breed was built around a completely different principle. A principle that works whether you're in Alabama or even Canada. We hosted the 2025 South Pole Field Day at Heifer Ranch where over 500 farmers came to learn about this principle. I sat down with the three biggest names in the space to get answers. The founder who created this breed from scratch when nothing else worked on his land. The educator who quit his day job after switching. And the rancher who selects purely for what survives in his environment. What they've discovered is going to change how you think about cattle forever. Let me tell you about Teddy Gentry and the problem he had. In the late 1980s, Teddy was running cattle in Alabama. He had land covered in fescue, a common grass across the South and Midwest. And his cattle were suffering. Typical English cattle, Hereford Angus. First of all, they didn't like our grass. This fescue is toxic. When hot weather comes along, unless we're able to eliminate that heat, they suffer from it. The only choice we had was Brahma cross cattle and the toughness gene came into play in the tenderness quality of the meat. Think about what Teddy just said. He loved cattle. He had land. He was doing everything right according to conventional wisdom. And it wasn't working. So he had a choice. Change his land to fit the cattle everyone else was using, or create cattle that fit his land. So I just felt like we needed to come up with a new composite breed that could stand the heat, give us a tender piece of meat, be gentle. All the things that we needed that we didn't have. So we started with Hereford and Red Angus and then I started looking for two heat tolerant breeds. The first one we found was a centipole from the Virgin Islands. They're very, very heat tolerant, very tender meat, have a real absence of connective tissue. So we crossed them on Red Angus and then we found the Barzana breed. It was developed in Arizona by the Bard family back in the 40s and 50s. We crossed them on the Herefords and got the same effect is that slicked the hair on them and then we crossed those two high blood back together and we came up with the name South Pole. Four breeds, each solving a specific problem. Hereford and Red Angus for the docility and the meat quality he wanted. Centipole for heat tolerance for Alabama summers. And Barzana, the slick coat that sheds heat. What started as a heat tolerant animal that would give us a tender piece of meat off of grass, but it actually developed into a maternal breed. And fertility and longevity is our two main objectives for what we're trying to do with South Pole. Notice what happened. Teddy started trying to solve a heat problem, but in the process he discovered something bigger. When you select cattle for your specific environment, fertility and longevity naturally improve because the cattle aren't fighting their environment anymore. They serve a real purpose. They're not just a pretty cow or something you take a picture with. They're real blue collar cows like they're out here working and making a living off of grass. So that's the origin. Not a breed created in a lab or for a show ring, but a breed created by a rancher who was desperate for cattle that fit their land, their grass, and the reality. The question is, did it actually work? Let me introduce you to Greg Judy. He's one of the most well-known grazing educators in the country. And when he talks about this breed, he doesn't talk about genetics or theory. We started many years ago conventional, just raising cattle like everybody else did, and found out at the end of the day there wasn't any money left in our pockets. And so we were introduced to the South Pole breed back in 2002, and we've never looked back. It allowed me to quit my job in town once we started actually making money with our cow herd. If you have a cow herd, it should work for you. You shouldn't be working in town to support your cow herd. And that's the beautiful thing about the South Pole breed is they're 100% grass fed. They don't need grain. They don't need any of this supplement. So why does this work? Here's a question that'll make you think. Would you rather have one cow that weighs 1,500 pounds, or two cows that weigh 750 pounds each? Here's what Teddy showed me. The bigger the cows, the longer it takes them to breed back because they got more maintenance. They got to maintenance their body plus get enough energy to start cycling again and raise the calf and breed back. And so if they're too big, it really takes away from the efficiency of the cattle. Luke, it's not profit per calf, it's profit per acre. You want to raise as much beef as you can on each acre. Well, you can do that when you get the cow size then. Everybody's got cows too darn big. They look like elephants and they don't breed back. They can't get enough protein and they can't get enough energy to stay fat. They don't cycle. They just don't cycle back. Well, now you got an open cow. She doesn't have a calf in her. What are you going to do with her? You going to winter her? You going to feed her hay all winter if she doesn't have a calf in her? That's a real good way to go broke. Just remember this. You're a solar collector. That's what you're doing. You're in the solar energy business. The plant catches the energy from the sun. The cow comes along and eats a bite of grass. Guess what? She gives you a calf out of that. For every grass blade that you can trample on the ground with an animal hook, you get two back. If you give me a dollar to put in the bank and at the end of the year, I gave you a dollar back. Plus you still had your original dollar invested. That's what cattle are doing. It's 100% return. So to break it down, the average U.S. cow raises about four and a half cows in her lifetime. And it's probably gone by age 10. The South Pole cow can raise eight to 10 calves in her lifetime and can go from 15 to 20 years. Okay, so we've got efficiency. We've got economics. We've got real farmers making real money. But here's where it gets really interesting. What if I told you there's one trait that predicts meat tenderness better than anything else? Then according to Teddy, it has nothing to do with genetics, feed, or even age. For decades, the beef industry has focused on marbling, feed rations, and finishing systems. But there's a factor most people completely miss. We need something in the South that would be easy to handle and that means gentle. And we found that over the years that gentle also means tenderness. You can't have tenderness in the beef breed without having gentleness. There's been several studies that showed that where they would put an electronic eye like 20 feet or 15 feet in front of the chute. And those are the work chutes, you know, where you work cattle. And from the time they'd open the chute, they'd measure the time it took those animals to exit. And the ones that ran out were always the toughest. And the ones that walked out were always the tenderest. It makes sense when you think about it. Stress affects the animal and that affects the meat. And the studies Teddy mentioned back it up. Calm behavior equals tender beef. Docility. People don't have any experience with livestock. Why would you bring a cow in that's going to try and kill you? Okay. So the South Pole breed, they're docile. That's not a small thing for family operations or people new to livestock. And to add to the temperament, I'm literally standing in a cattle field as I say this. And they don't care. And then fertility. Because the number one way to make money in a low input grazing cattle business is got to give us a calf every 365 days. You got to do it cheaply. You got to be able to do it on what we grow. Steve also made a connection I'd never thought about. Docility, fertility, and profitability are all linked together. Calm cattle actually breed better under heat stress. They are docile. They handle spring calving, which means summer breeding. They're one of the few breeds that can do that. We're breeding in July and August in a very hot, you know, non-brittle, humid environment. And here's the kicker. That's why they've been selecting for it generation after generation. Keep the calm ones. Cull the wild ones. It compounds over time. A cow that's a good mama. So when she has the calf, she takes care of it. You don't have to go out there and, you know, interject and take the calf, make sure it's and all that stuff. Those would be the traits that I'd be looking at. Off hands, low maintenance animals that don't require your constant attention. Okay. They should be able to make it on their own. As long as you move them. Give them something to eat. Move them and give them good water and mineral. That's it. Think about what this means. While the mainstream industry measures frame scores and growth rates, these breeders focus on something completely different. And it's working. And this breed doesn't just work in Alabama. Remember, this breed was designed for hot, humid, brutal summers. But something unexpected started happening. A high percentage of the South Pole, over 50 percent, that would probably be homozygous for the sick hair gene, which means that they're not going to grow hair in the wintertime. But there's a good population of the breed that will grow hair in the wintertime and slick off in the summertime, which is what the northern breeders need. And I think because of our getting our cow size the right size and fertility and longevity being coming into the picture now that we're getting even northern breeders that are coming in and say, well, I'll pick some cattle from a breeder in northern Missouri that has cold winters and they're adapted to the cold weather. Here's what's interesting about this. Instead of creating one rigid type, this breed has built in flexibility. Northern graziers can select for hair growth and southern graziers can select against it. The same breed, but different expressions. But here's what all three of these guys kept saying. This isn't really about genetics. It's about philosophy. Match your cattle to your land, not the other way around. We give every heifer a chance to breed in our operation. We don't care who their mother is, who their father is, what their genealogy is. And what we're looking for is that adapted animal to what we grow, what our environment is. We don't try to outproduce our environment, get animals that outproduce it. We want animals that fit it. We use our cow herd as our tool, just like you use a hoe or a rake. They are our fertilizer machine. They do our mowing for us. They do our seeding for us with their feet. They're always trapping seed into the soil. We call them a landscaping service. People say, oh, but Greg, I don't have time to move my cows. Well, if you don't have time to move your cows, you shouldn't be owning any cows. You need to move them. The grass needs to be clipped with their mouth and then moved. You're leaving the manure, the urine, and the flies and the parasites behind you to feed the soil microbes and the earthworms. And we're growing more grass. Our soils are getting better every year without going broke. That's what it's about. Everything within our boundary is our responsibility, from the cattle and good husbandry to trying to provide with native forbs, let things get taller, let trees grow in a little bit more brush, keep our fence rows bushy so that we have the bird counts and the quail that can come in. You're seeing so many pollinators. You're seeing cattle that are happy eating a variety of different forbs and grasses. Man, when you're walking in it, you just know this could be the best there is. Greg and Steve are describing something bigger than just cattle breeding. We're talking about whole system thinking where the cattle are part of land healing, not land degradation. Steve pointed out something fascinating. This isn't actually anything new. Yeah, because, you know, I'm reading books from the 30s and 40s. They're talking about mycorrhizal fungi. Like, we're thinking this is a new thing. A windbreak will slow down wind and reduce wind damage. And fields can be still further protected against both wind and water damage by cover crops like winter rye or crimson clover. But then when the nitrogen revolution, nitrogen fertilizer came after the war, we started producing nitrogen fertilizer. All the things we learned back in the 30s and 40s and 50s, it's like we just walked away from it. So this movement isn't inventing something new. It's rediscovering what worked before industrial agriculture told us to do it differently. Over 500 farmers showed up to this field day. And look at who's here. Young farmers, first-generation graziers, people who inherited land and want to do things differently. The next generation, I'd like for them to improve what we've had. You know, we worked hard to improve, but they can make more improvements. But it has to make sense and make money at the end of the year. My deal is go buy a bull and then go find you some cheaper cows. It could even be Corriente stock. They're open stock. Those cows are cheaper. It's smaller frame and stature. Breed it. Breed a South Pole bull to a longhorn, guess what you get? You get a bud on them. That South Pole bull will put more meat on them. It takes the horns off. It takes the color out. Next thing you know, you've got a red herd. And you did it on the cheap. So if I'm a young person starting out, I might be looking at that. They call that breeding up. We don't have to produce the most. We have to have optimum production. Not push our land beyond its limits with a lot of artificial inputs. And we have animals that will fit that system. There's no other form of agriculture that I know of that a young person can get into today. On the cheap. That is versus grazing. Because you don't need a hundred thousand dollar tractor. You don't need a half a million dollar combine. You don't have to go bankrupt and go to the bank and get two million dollars to buy a farm. You don't need to do that. Just go lease it. Go lease you some land. Get started small. Learn your mistakes and then start ramping up from there. I'm not saying you have to have South Pole. The cattle must be adapted to your environment in order to breed every year. To cycle and perform like a cow. Did you catch that? Teddy, the founder of this breed, just said, I'm not saying you have to have a South Pole. So why are farmers everywhere suddenly talking about this one specific breed? Because it's living proof of a principle. Match your cattle to your land. And the economics work better than pushing your land to fit your cattle. Fertility over frame size. Longevity over growth rate. And efficiency over inputs. And most importantly, temperament over conformity. These aren't just South Pole traits. These are principles that work anywhere. Events like this South Pole Field Day are what we do at Heifer Ranch. Bringing farmers together to learn from the best in regenerative agriculture. If you want to know when our next field day or workshop is, follow us on social media and join our mailing list. The links are in the description and we'd love to see you out here on the ranch. If you want to learn how to start your own cattle farm, watch this video next as we go over every step you'll need to know as a beginner. If you like this video, make sure to subscribe and drop a comment below to let us know what we should cover next.