"Cracker" Cattle and Horses are descended from stock brought from Spain in the early 16th Century.
The Crescent J Ranch has the largest herds of registered Cracker Cattle and Horses in the world!
In 1521, Juan Ponce de Leonī made his second trip to Florida. In the eight years since he visited Florida's
East Coast, he had been appointed Governor of Puerto Rico by Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
At their command to colonize, he loaded Spanish cattle and horses onto his small fleet of little caravels, intending
to pasture them on the prairies of SW Florida. Unfortunately, his men had no sooner unloaded them in the
vicinity of present-day Port Charlotte when they were attacked by the warlike Calusa Indians. Ponce de Leonī
received an arrow wound in his side; his men hurriedly took him back aboard and sailed immediately for Cuba,
where there was medical care. However, Ponce died of infection, and the Indians had the cattle.
Later introductions of livestock by Hernando de Soto in NW Florida were more successful, resulting in the first
large-scale ranches in the world, in the Spanish Colonial Period. (In Florida, not Texas!) The Indians, however,
let their cattle run wild, harvesting them like deer.
In four centuries, Mother Nature selected Florida's feral cattle, horses and pigs to survive with heat, poor
nutrition, external and internal parasites and predators, primarily panthers. The cattle are small, scrawny
when on native pasture, but butterball-fat on Crescent J's improved pastures, and colorfully patterned. The
horses also adapted and became tough, intelligent and wary, as those that weren't, didn't survive to reproduce.
The pigs have done so well that they are a big problem, damaging native areas and ranches alike. They have
eradicated many native species, preying on ground-nesting birds and eggs as well as reptiles and amphibians.
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