A Mega Corporation
The King Ranch is one of the largest ranches in the world and occupies 800,000 acres in the Texas coastal plain.   Most folks think of the King Ranch as just that, a large ranch, but it is much more, it is a mega corporation involved in high tech agriculture of all kinds.   Everything the King Ranch does is first class and uses the latest state-of-the-art techniques.  

Diversity
Did you know the King Ranch is the largest supplier of orange juice, and pecans in the US?   They have developed two new, separate strains of cattle, Santa Gertrudis, and Santa Cruze, the only new breeds of cattle originating in the United States.   When we visited, the tour guide also noted they had 56,000 acres of cotton, and over 20,000 acres of milo under cultivation.   The cattle are kept in 400 pastures of about 10,000 acres each.   The King Ranch has several grades of cattle on the ranch, the breeding Santa Gertrudis, the breeding Santa Cruz, stocker cattle, and their own herd of Longhorns.   They run long horns with each herd to act as leaders and help protect them from coyotes, etc.  
The King Ranch requires lots of horses, so they developed their own strain of quarter horse, they also have raised arabian thorough bred race horses, one even won the triple crown.   They developed their own type of fencing and have it specially made for them.   The fence posts are a mix of metal and cedar and have a specific spacing to withstand hurricanes which come onshore from the Gulf of Mexico.  

Los Kinenos
When Richard King started buying land in 1853, he knew he would need a large group of workers to work the cattle and help protect the range from maurading indians.   He went to mexico and convinced the population of an entire village to migrate to his land in Texas, these folks became the Kinenos or "king's people".   Their decendants live and work on the King Ranch today.   Their children go to school on the ranch until the 9th grade, then attend school in Kingsville.   After high school, there is a path to a university education if they choose.   Each wrangler gets two horses, a pickup, a trailer and a place for he and his family to live.   When he reaches retirement age, he gets a check and lives on the Ranch for the rest of his days.   As I said, the King Ranch does things right, this is what I think of as "family values".

The Visitor center at the King Ranch.

The tour bus you'll take.

The Texas coastal plain, consists of grass land with a lot of mesquite brush and cactus.   The King Ranch maintains a specific mix of grass to brush.   The brush provides shade for the cattle, and cover for wild life.

Another kind of cactus, this one is called "Horse Crippler".

Pure bred Santa Gertrudis, these are breeding stock.   No bulls run with the cows, breeding is done with artificial insemination to closely control the bloodline.

More breeding stock.   The water trough painted white indicates the water comes from an artesian well.

These are "stocker" Santa Gertrudis", note the white cow is a longhorn.

Another shot of "stocker" cattle.   Most ranchers would give their eye teeth for some of these.

Note the bulls among these "stocker" cattle.

These are Santa Cruz, they produce beef with less fat.

Some of the herd of longhorns.

Another shot of the longhorn herd.

Some King Ranch quarter horses watering.

More quarter horses,   Again, note the white water troughs, artesian water.

A wild turkey on the King Ranch.

The flat stones are headstones for thorough bred race horse's graves, raised on the King Ranch.

The horse barn on Ford's pickup advertisements.

The King Ranch had to diversify, so one approach allowed oil/gas drilling on their land.   Here is a "bump gate" developed by Exxon to allow the oil workers access to the property and assure the gates would never be left open.   Note the gate is pivots around the base post, and is supported by two chains, wrapped around the upper post.   A truck, "bumps" the wooden panel on the right side of the gate, the gate pivots out of the way, wrapping the chains further around the upper post, then gravity closes it after the truck has passed.

One of our last stops was at the weaving building, where a retired (more or less) wrangler told stories about brands and the life on the King Ranch.   Here is Betty with the wrangler, he said he was the fifth generation of his family to work on the King Ranch, he is in his eightys.