THE J BAR ANGUS STORY
In 1991, a little over a full century after the first Angus bull was brought to Texas, Mark and Karen Janak had an opportunity to start a registered Angus operation. While neither of them were foreign to cattle operations, the combined experience of the two mainly resided in registered Brahmas or commercial herds. So, then what caused the shift? Quite simply, a good friend of the family, Dr. Harvey Renger, was looking to downsize. After buying a portion of the herd, Mark wanted to put his own twist on the operation.
Looking at various different ranchers throughout the US, he settled on buying two low birthweight herd bulls from a ranch in Nebraska. These bulls were of the QAS 23-4 Traveler and Tehamo Bando bloodline. Through this combination, and using AI breeding, Mark and Karen built J Bar Angus into what it is today.
Private treaty bulls are available year-round with a annual bull sale on the first Friday in December at the J Bar ranch. Females are offered at the annual December sale, along with registered and commercial females at the ranch year round too.
Adding five children along the way, Mark and Karen have steadily grown their family along with the cattle operation. They have been able to consistently produce deep bodied, high milking, low birth weight animals that have exceptional growth, marbling, and various other carcass traits.
With the growing family Mark and Karen also took other steps to grow J Bar Angus, by purchasing Janak Packing in 2011. This has allowed another avenue to go with the cattle through customer cattle purchases from the rancher and a convenient custom processing of the animals, just down the road at Janak Packing, Inc.