The American International Charolais Association (AICA) awarded Jerry Maltby, owner of Broken Box Ranch of Williams, California the Seedstock Producer of the Year Award at the AICA Spring Meeting held March 22, 2015 at the Argosy Casino Hotel & Spa in Riverside, Missouri.
The AICA Seedstock Producer of the Year Award is awarded to the top Seedstock Producers within the organization’s 2,900 members.
Broken Box Ranch is located just north of Williams, California where it is surrounded by organic and conventional rice fields, and boasts a 3,500 head feedlot operation.
Jerry’s father started Broken Box Ranch in the 1950s with purebred Herefords. He did not agree with that breed’s decision to follow the trend to smaller-framed cattle in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Jerry and his father decided to pursue a different route – crossing Charolais on their purebreds. Their first exposure to Charolais was through a beef class Jerry took at the University of California-Chico. Soon after, in 1962, they located a Charolais bull in California and began using this breed.
“The following calf crops increased our weaning weights 150-plus pounds and we were sold!” Jerry recalls.
In 1963, Jerry purchased his first purebred Charolais cows. He says his goal has always been to produce seedstock bulls for the commercial industry that are easy calving with rapid growth and sire top-quality carcasses.