Chisholm Cattle Company

Chisholm Cattle Company sells Wagyu heifers, bulls, semen and embryos, and says so plainly on its own front page. It does not sell beef. That is the first thing to know, because a search for a Wagyu producer's name usually comes from someone looking for something to cook, and here there is nothing to buy in that sense at all.

The company describes itself as specialising in helping new ranchers start with the breed, which is a distinct trade with a distinct customer. Breeding stock is bought on pedigree, expected progeny data and defect status; beef is bought on marbling and price. A directory of Wagyu producers has to carry both kinds, and the useful thing it can do is tell you which one you have found.

The operation has bred Wagyu in Central Texas since 2007 and offers both Red and Black Wagyu, which are two different strains rather than a colour choice. Black is Japanese Black, the strain behind almost all famous Japanese beef brands; Red is Japanese Brown, usually called Akaushi in the United States, leaner and differently marbled.

Its programme emphasises original import genetics and names foundation bulls including Itoshigenami and Rueshaw. Those names are meaningful to a breeder and invisible to a shopper: they belong to the small set of animals brought out of Japan before exports closed, and a herd's descent from them is what a fullblood claim ultimately rests on.

The only address published is a post office box at Wimberley, in the hill country south of Austin, which is common for small operations and is not a sign of anything. Do not read it as a location for the cattle. This listing carries the town because that is what the company and its association profile state, and nothing finer than that is public.

One correction is worth stating because it was in this directory's own data and is easy to reproduce elsewhere: the operation is Texan, not Coloradan. Nothing in its own materials, its breeder profile or any directory connects it to Colorado.