Tangled H Ranch is located in Montrose, Colorado. This ranch focuses on the essentialism and authenticity of world-class Red Wagyu genetics with select full-blood bulls, heifers, embryos, and semen for sale.

World-Class Genetics

At Tangled H Ranch, we have descendants of Legendary Red Wagyu Foundation Sires. Our cattle’s bloodline includes (6) foundation bulls: Rueshaw, Judo, Big Al, Hikari, Tamamaru, and Shigemaru & (7) foundation females: Namiko, Akiko, Haruko, Fuyuko, Ume, Dai 8 Marunami, Kademaru.

A Distinguished History

1994 was the last time Red Wagyu cattle were permitted to leave Japan. Tangled H Ranch has descendants of those 13 original foundation cattle. Our ranch includes Red Wagyu cattle, ducks, sheep, dogs, and other ranch animals.  Our cattle are grass-fed and grain-fed, given alfalfa as treats, and roam freely in our pastures.

Family-Owned operation Offering World-Class Genetics

Tangled H Ranch focuses on the essentialism and authenticity of world-class Red Wagyu genetics. In tribute to Japan’s Emperor’s Herd, declared a National Treasure, we strive to maintain the integrity of those foundation cattle.

Arrival to the U.S.

The origin of Red Wagyu is in Kumamoto Japan, located in the middle of Kyushu Island.  In 1976, two Kumamoto red bulls were imported into the U.S. by Morris Whitney.  They were Rueshaw (Japanese National Champion) and Judo. Their genetics are rapidly dwindling and very costly. Skillfully bred, they will endure through their progeny.

A loophole in a trade act between the United States and Japan allowed Japanese Venture Partners (JVP) to import 2 red heifers, Kunisakae and 27 Homare, in 1994.

Another import occurred in 1994 the day a Texas physician, Dr. Al Woods, and rancher, Jose’ Antonio Elias Calles, sped to the airport with three bulls – Shigemaru, Tamamaru, Hikari – and 9 females.

It was wild, to say the least as Japanese opposition groups created human barricades around their vehicles and attempted poisonings of the small herd. Their semen inventory was confiscated… almost all of it. On a specially equipped Boeing 737 with bodyguards, Dr. Woods reached into the cow, Akiko, and broke a stashed straw of semen. The insemination would take her and her son, the stowaway, to the U.S. Big Al, the stowaway, was the first Red Wagyu bull born on American soil.

For two years, the cattle were quarantined under the guard of off-duty Texas Rangers protecting the herd from thieves, ranchers, and interbreeding, until the legal issues could be settled. After the judicial smoke cleared, the only 16 Red Wagyu cattle to ever leave Japan were declared legal imports.