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Eagle Pass Ranch 

The Munger family has been farming and ranching in South Dakota ever since our original homestead in 1882 in southern Brown County. Steve and Debi Munger raised sons AJ and Nate on that original homestead and Steve and Debi continue to reside there today.

Our operation as Eagle Pass Ranch began in 1987 when we along with a partner purchased the ranch formerly known as Jennings Hyland Angus which sprawled over Hand, Hyde and Buffalo Counties in central South Dakota. Jennings Hyland Angus began as brothers Clayton and Ted Jennings came to the state from Iowa where they had worked as hog merchants. They had cash in their pockets during the 1930's when cash was scarce among the original homesteaders in central South Dakota. This allowed them to accumulate a vast land holding, which they stocked with Angus cattle.

Their success breeding Angus was well known in the 1950's and early 1960's. They exhibited numerous Champion Angus bulls at the Chicago International. During the 1960's they teamed up with the Les and Lee Leachman families who had come west from Ankony, NY with their own Angus herd. The Jennings and Leachmans combined to form Ankony Hyland and continued their dominance at major Angus shows.

Later in the 1960's the ranch was sold to a California investment group which the Jennings operated for the new owners and the Leachman family moved on to Montana. In the 1970's, the Jennings repurchased the ranch from the California group and resumed their cattle operation, however the Ankony Hyland cowherd also moved on in a separate sale to a Nebraska ranch and became known as Ankony Shadow Isle. After the split of the ranch and the foundation cow herd, the Jennings brothers were best known for their feeder cattle operation. They purchased thousands of calves from area ranchers and either backgrounded them or ran them on summer pastures.

When Eagle Pass Ranch purchased the property in 1987 we were fortunate enough to retain most of the employees from the Jennings operation. This accumulated experience has proven to be very valuable over the years. There have been some changes to the ranch over time. Some of the outlying property has been sold to fund buy outs of original owners, some of the range land has been converted to crop land. Many of the original buildings have been razed and replaced with new, modern structures.

The constant over time is that the ranch continues to be home to a progressive cattle operation managed by a family with a vision of the future. The Munger family ranching business is now a sixth generation operation with a seventh generation preparing to take over some day. Steve and Debi Munger remain active with the ranch. AJ, with his wife Emily and son Briggs, serves the ranch as marketing and records manager. Nate, with his wife Hillary and sons Rhett and Graham, serves the ranch as operations manager.

The Eagle Pass Ranch breeding program began in 1987 when we stocked our 45,000 acre ranch on the prairies of central South Dakota with a foundation herd of 4,500 commercial Angus cows. These foundation cows were already carrying an assortment of English and Continental calves that were all sold at weaning in 1988. We knew we wanted calves with more hybrid vigor, uniformity and quality than that first calf crop so we embarked on the largest "breed up" program ever undertaken in the U.S.

Beginning in 1988, we artificially inseminated all 4,500 cows to Gelbvieh sires. Gelbvieh were relatively unknown at the time, but had impressed us with the data from the Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) in Clay Center, NE. This MARC data showed Gelbvieh having the most pounds of calf weaned per cow exposed than any other English or Continental breed. This was the best indicator of cow efficiency at the time and the Gelbvieh/Angus cross fit well with our desire for hybrid vigor. The first calf crop was awe inspiring. The cross that would one day be known as Balancers were heavier, more uniform and more eye appealing than any cattle we had seen before.

Our initial matings were based on our desire for maximum performance, structural correctness, and the polled factor.  We began feeding out our own calves in 1990 and gathering their carcass data for future selection. We provided the first large scale carcass data set to the American Gelbvieh Association, which they used as the base for their carcass EPD's later in the decade. To us quality was not just eye appeal, but also carcass merit and gainability, both of which we measured religiously. We continued to use this same breeding philosophy through much of the 1990's and replaced those initial foundation cows with our new cowherd base of Balancer females. We also added registered Angus females to the program in 1992 and incorporated an aggressive embryo transfer program to complement our ongoing AI program.

We felt some of our females were getting too large as we continued to breed for maximum growth so we incorporated a revised philosophy of moderating frame size while maintaining growth. From 1997 until 2007 we were able to lower our overall frame scores by one full score, while still increasing yearling weights by 50 pounds. This moderate size and muscular, structurally correct appearance that we had bred into our entire herd was well accepted by judges at major shows. From 2000 until present we have bred and shown the National Champion Balancer or Gelbvieh 13 times.

We continued our selection for growth, carcass quality and uniformity, but saw the opportunity for adding feed efficiency to our selection process. In 2007 after numerous consultations with animal scientists at several research institutions, we purchased and installed a GrowSafe feed intake system that weighed each mouthful of feed on a 24/7 basis. The data from this testing allowed us to establish a data set that would allow us to determine which of our sires and dams were producing the most feed efficient progeny. This process is ongoing and we have now proven 40 sire lines and all of our cow families. Our herd average feed to gain ratio is nearly two pounds below the industry average and after stacking several generations of feed efficient genetics we are now producing cattle with less than a 3:1 feed to gain ratio.

The next decade of genetic selection will see us push the envelope on feed efficiency, growth and carcass quality. Our progeny testing program has proven that calves sired by our bulls average over 95% choice and higher with 30% grading prime. Our carcass weights have

Eagle Pass has proven over 40 sire lines and 12 cow families for feed efficiency. We are now in the process of stacking feed efficiency on feed efficiency through an aggressive ET and AI program. We will continue to identify more sire lines and incorporate the seedstock with superior feed efficiency into our breeding program.also averaged over 900 lbs. making them very desirable to cattle feeders and packers alike.

The basis for our success from the beginning has been performance testing, carcass testing, feed intake testing and progeny testing. Without this huge bank of data, our breeding program would just be a game of darts. "You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure".

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