Join the Winning Team...Your Future Lies with Bonsmara!

The reason for developing the Bonsmara breed was to establish an efficient beef breed suitable for the warm bushveld and sub-tropical areas of South Africa. However, because of its adaptability, efficiency, beef- and carcass characteristics, the breed has gained much ground and today proliferates throughout South Africa. Because of its virtues, Bonsmara is also much sought after in other parts of the world, including the United States.

Bonsmara has become a highly respected breed because of the
following attributes:

• Excellent fertility with short inter-calving conditions
• Early maturity
• Low birth weights therefore easier calving
• Better re-conception rates
• Well developed udders with adequate milk
• Adaptable to most climates
• Better temperaments
• Excellent carcass and meat qualities
• Good growth ability
• Advantageous feed conversion ratio
  

Bonsmara cattle are generally even-tempered and easy to manage under most management systems. They do well in arid conditions and can also withstand humidity and insects. With their great breeding abilities, general hardiness, and docility, the Bonsmara has become a favorite of many subtropical and global ranchers!


Characteristics of the Breed

Bonsmara cattle are a red, often dehorned breed. They have white underlines but should not have excessive white. The coats should be short and the animal should have a generally healthy appearance, with muscular, straight shoulders and legs and well-developed hindquarters. Bonsmara Cattle have broad, straight faces that are of medium length. As medium framed cattle, bulls weigh around 500 kilograms at maturity, and cows are a bit lighter. Breed standards are very strict, and include reproductive as well as physical traits! Bonsmara were intended to be a beef producing breed who could compete with European beef cattle while withstanding subtropical conditions, and indeed they are! Both heat and weather resistant, Bonsmara also tend to be insect-proof, resisting most tick-borne illnesses. They are well muscled and the meat is of high quality, marbled, and the carcass yield is high. Bonsmara Cattle are reproductively apt as well, and bulls have large scrotum circumferences. Cows have wide pelvic areas and nicely conformed udders.


Strict Breeding Standards

Breed standards for Bonsmara Cattle are very strict. Cattle with bad or wild temperaments; skew faces or muzzles; under or over shot jaws; outward growing or inward curling hooves; scoliosis; congenital kinking of the upper third of the tail; long, fleshy sheaths or sheaths with openings that are too large; hypoplasia of the testes; cryptorchidism; torsion of the scrotum; or summer coats that are wooly or frizzy in texture and appearance would have to be taken into account first. A number of other faults will be marked as such but animals will not necessarily be disqualified for them.


Conclusion

Consider Bonsmara if you are seeking a breed with impressive
characteristics that include great growth and excellent fertility.

This is truly the "all-natural" beef with consistently tender meat.

With a database compiled since 1937 of approximately one million performance tested animals, the Bonsmara breed is one of the largest gene pools in the world.

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