The History Of...

Rambling Creek Cattle Co.

• The MCdonald family has been in the livestock business for four generations.  In the early and mid 1970's we were breeding with limousine bulls in hope's of getting involved in the pure bred business.  That is when a turn of events started taking place that led us to become very involved with the British White Cattle..

• In 1978 we were going to be using 8 limousine bulls, but one bull went bad just as breeding season started.  We had been hearing about some new breed of White cattle and a man who might possibly have a bull for sale.  We purchased the bull with the idea of only using him that one year to buy some till the next breeding season.  That fall we were preg checking our cattle we soon noticed that the 2yr. old British White Bull had bred 100% of the 30 head of cows exposed to him, where the other 7 bulls only settled about 80% of their cows.  In 1979 we put the British White bull in with one other bull in a large pasture with 80 head of cows.  We noticed all summer, that on hot days the white bull was constantly working, and that the other bull would lay around, sometimes under the shade tree's.  The next spring when we were done calving, we were shocked in what we discovered.  Out of the 80 cows, we had 66 white calves, 11 limousine calves and 3 cows not bred.

• Over the next few years we phased out the other breeds and concentrated on the British White.  We had some issues that we didn't like at the time with the breed, so we spent a lot of time, effort, and money to try to come up with a bull that fit our needs.  In the spring of 1986 the bull calf "McFarley" was born, we had no idea just how much he would go on to change our herd, and the breed as a whole.  (If most of you will look at your extended pedigrees, you will more than likely see this great bull's influence is in there someplace.) Finally we had the cattle we wanted, and some other breeders had also come a long way with there breeding programs.

• Along came 1987, by this time there were a lot of very good British White cattle around, but no promotional programs set in place to market and develop the breed.  Tom Zimmerman and I (Dale McDonald) spent hours and hours thinking and talking about ways to get the British Whites promoted and on a roll.  Tom came up with the idea of forming the British White Cattle Association of America. (BWCAA) It sounded good and with a lot of hard work and long hours, Tom got the legal business and the format in place for the BWCAA.  We wanted the association to be performance minded, and to help the breeders to develop the type of cattle that the commercial cattleman could and would start using in their breeding.  Tom was the first president of the association, and for 4 1/2 years we, here at Rambling Creek Cattle Co. were the first secretary and field representatives.  Our job was to run the office, recruit members and to oversee and promote the association sponsored events, such as association steer test's, bull test's and sale, National Shows and several live displays to promote the three.  By this time it was 1992 we felt that after 4 1/2 years of intense involvement that it was time for us to step down and back away from the day to day operation of the association and just develop our own line of breeding with the Rambling Creek RC25R "Terminator" and we feel Terminator offers the frame, growth and feed efficient cattle that the industry needs.

• On Sept. 20, 2008 we held a 20 Year anniversary party for our involvement in the BWCAA.  We held an open house with a private treaty sale on the very top end of our cattle.  IT was a great success for our first event held in many years with 73 people in attendance and 11 head of cattle being sold at an average price of $2,875 per head.  We just couldn't have asked for a better day.  It was so enjoyable and just an all around great day that we have decided to make this an annual event on the 3rd Saturday of September.

• For the upcoming year of 2009 we have a few more things put in place.  We have steers on test in two locations and are excited about getting the information back.  We are planning some live displays, entering some cattle shows and also a Bull Giveaway (by random drawing) to someone who makes a purchase at our 2009 Sale. We have had a lot of success in the past with 18 major show winner's, Top selling bulls at British White Sale's Top gaining Steer's on British White Steer Test's, In the future, watch for us, now as Rambling Creek Cattle Co. we have some new blood (my two sons) to keep thing's going and take us into the future with the Best of the British White cattle!