Our herd is called Melroe Farms and we are located in Gwinner, North Dakota – which is an extremely cold part of the country. On the Fahrenheit scale we haven’t been above zero for the last week. That would be about -20°C, I believe.
We run about 150 cow and calf pairs, they’re all registered with the American Chianina Association. Our primary focus would be raising bulls for commercial producers.
I grew up with the Shorthorn breed and we really appreciated the maternal quality it has. However, its commercial acceptability started to decline, so we decided to look for another opportunity.
I guess when you’re involved with the Shorthorn breed you’re always interested in cattle that have quality, eye appeal and some balance. We thought the Chiangus breed, a cross between Chianina and Angus, was one that would not only have that balance and looks, but also have some performance, carcase merit, and other qualities that are valuable to our commercial customers.
Chiangus
We started the new enterprise in the early 2000s. We purchased our first Chianina cows out in Nebraska and it’s really grown from there, as we’ve slowly sold off our Shorthorn cow herd.
Like most continentally associated breeds in America, the first crosses came in around the early 1970s, so that would have been the start of the Chianina breed.
The Chianina organisation is also unique in that it is one of the first breed organisations that adopted a hybrid programme, where we can utilise these composite crossbred bulls in planned matings.
The Chianina crossed extremely well with the Angus breed, they were very complementary with each other and that’s the breed we’ve got today.
I’m a part of the operation with my father, Steve Melroe. I’m kind of his day-to-day man.
I also have a day job working for a company called Hubbard Feeds, which is part of the Alltech feed division. I’m a beef nutritionist, I cover North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, working with customers and sales people to try and provide the best customer service we can.
It’s about an 11-hour drive down here to the National Western Stock Show in Colorado if the roads are good. In January the roads aren’t always good. We showed two Chianina pens here in 2013 and 2014, and we had a champion pen both of those years. Before that I hadn’t shown since 1994, when we had the Shorthorn champion.
I had a reserve champion heifer that year when I was just a boy.
This year is our first Chiangus championship win at the western stock show. Our bull, Encore 78E, took the title of grand champion Chiangus bull.
It was an early start. This morning we brought him in about 5am. We started by just washing him and let him feed until about 9:30am. Then it took an hour and a half for four of us to get him ready, putting glue on him, fitting and then presenting him for the judges.
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Our herd is called Melroe Farms and we are located in Gwinner, North Dakota – which is an extremely cold part of the country. On the Fahrenheit scale we haven’t been above zero for the last week. That would be about -20°C, I believe.
We run about 150 cow and calf pairs, they’re all registered with the American Chianina Association. Our primary focus would be raising bulls for commercial producers.
I grew up with the Shorthorn breed and we really appreciated the maternal quality it has. However, its commercial acceptability started to decline, so we decided to look for another opportunity.
I guess when you’re involved with the Shorthorn breed you’re always interested in cattle that have quality, eye appeal and some balance. We thought the Chiangus breed, a cross between Chianina and Angus, was one that would not only have that balance and looks, but also have some performance, carcase merit, and other qualities that are valuable to our commercial customers.
Chiangus
We started the new enterprise in the early 2000s. We purchased our first Chianina cows out in Nebraska and it’s really grown from there, as we’ve slowly sold off our Shorthorn cow herd.
Like most continentally associated breeds in America, the first crosses came in around the early 1970s, so that would have been the start of the Chianina breed.
The Chianina organisation is also unique in that it is one of the first breed organisations that adopted a hybrid programme, where we can utilise these composite crossbred bulls in planned matings.
The Chianina crossed extremely well with the Angus breed, they were very complementary with each other and that’s the breed we’ve got today.
I’m a part of the operation with my father, Steve Melroe. I’m kind of his day-to-day man.
I also have a day job working for a company called Hubbard Feeds, which is part of the Alltech feed division. I’m a beef nutritionist, I cover North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, working with customers and sales people to try and provide the best customer service we can.
It’s about an 11-hour drive down here to the National Western Stock Show in Colorado if the roads are good. In January the roads aren’t always good. We showed two Chianina pens here in 2013 and 2014, and we had a champion pen both of those years. Before that I hadn’t shown since 1994, when we had the Shorthorn champion.
I had a reserve champion heifer that year when I was just a boy.
This year is our first Chiangus championship win at the western stock show. Our bull, Encore 78E, took the title of grand champion Chiangus bull.
It was an early start. This morning we brought him in about 5am. We started by just washing him and let him feed until about 9:30am. Then it took an hour and a half for four of us to get him ready, putting glue on him, fitting and then presenting him for the judges.
Read more
Destination Dubai: Irish man flies giant Chianina cattle to UAE
In pictures: do you know these 10 rare breeds?
$765m redevelopment for Denver Stock show
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