Forty-nine Brahman cattle shipped to Australia became over a million in Queensland
Between 1933 and 1954 Australia imported just 49 American Brahman cattle. Their heat-proof, parasite-resistant descendants multiplied until, by century's end, no breed in the country was more numerous. The breed itself began in Texas with two grey bulls from India, and some of its ancestors arrived as circus animals.
The Brahman is an American beef breed mixing humped zebu cattle with European-type stock. Humped cattle first reached the United States in 1849, when one bull of Indian origin came from Britain to South Carolina. The real start came in 1885, when two grey bulls sailed directly from India to Texas; one topped 800 kg, the other weighed barely half as much, and both were crossed with local cows. Small shipments followed until around 1906, some meant for circus display before being sold on to ranchers. In 1924 and 1925, 210 bulls and 18 cows, mostly Guzera, came up from Brazil through Mexico.
Breeders organised the American Brahman Breeders Association in 1924, and its secretary J. W. Sartwelle picked the name. The herd-book closed in 1939 to all but offspring of registered parents, with exceptions such as eighteen Brazilian bulls admitted in 1946. Until 1991 every American humped breed sat in the same book, when Gir, Nelore and others got their own.
Heat, sun and humidity barely trouble the Brahman, and it shrugs off insects, parasites and sparse grazing, doing well along the southern US coast. Australia's 49 imports had more than 225,000 descendants by 1973, and about 700 more head arrived after 1981. The breed is now reported from fifty-five countries on every inhabited continent, with an estimated 1.8 million head worldwide. Curiously, the last US figure, from 2014, counted just under 9,500 animals.
Its meat ranks below that of specialised European beef breeds, so farmers usually cross it with them, gaining hybrid vigour along with toughness. Some crosses became breeds in their own right, including the Brangus from Angus and the Simbrah from Simmental. In Oman and Fujairah, Brahman bulls compete in traditional bull-butting and may be fed milk and honey beforehand.
Source: American Brahman
