Ranch History
Owning a ranch was a goal Don set as a young boy. Whether it was horses or cattle, he spent much of his youth on horseback and working with cattle, dreaming about the ranch and animals he wanted to have some day. To him, spending time in a ranching environment was truly living and was a very rewarding lifestyle.
In August 1996, Don and his wife, Leah, established Triangle B Ranch on a 70 acre tract of land on the Northwest arm of Lake Ray Roberts in North Texas. They began the operation with 10 head of F1 Maine-Anjou x Angus cows bred to Purebred Maine-Anjou bulls. Soon thereafter, they purchased three additional tracts of land totaling about 350 acres. Most of the land was crop land so they planted a high quality hybrid Bermuda grass for grazing and hay. In addition, they purchased an additional 50 head of F1 Maine-Anjou x Angus cows bred to Purebred Maine-Anjou bulls plus three top donors and one herd bull, all Purebred Maine-Anjou as well. At this same time Don attended AI and ET schools to learn firsthand about quickly multiplying their top genetics.
Business was good, and they grew the operation through AI and ET to 125 head of Purebred Maine-Anjou cows and raised club calves, seed stock, and feeders for a several years. Then, in 2002 Chris Coffey, a good friend of Don’s, and he were at a leadership coaching event that Chris was facilitating in Eastern Tennessee. They had dinner at a local five star restaurant that offered Wagyu beef on the menu. Neither of them had eaten Wagyu beef before, but they both were beef connoisseurs and had heard about this highest quality beef with the rich buttery flavor. They both ordered the Wagyu beef and enjoyed it so much that they came back to the same restaurant the next night and ordered the Wagyu beef again.
Following this event, Don researched Wagyu cattle for several years and then he met Bob Estrin from Lone Mountain Cattle Company in the spring of 2005. At the time Bob was looking for recipients for his embryos as he was actively establishing his Wagyu herd in Golden, New Mexico. Don and Bob partnered on 20 Wagyu embryos which resulted in six Fullblood Wagyu calves each. These calves were all Tajima bloodline. In addition, Don experimented with an F1 Wagyu x Maine-Anjou cross as a beef product. While there was good success with the product, the consistency of the IMF and carcass qualify just was not there.
Being a club calf producer, Don wanted to produce Fullblood Wagyu cattle that were larger frame, had an overall thick and balanced look to them, and would consistently produce quality carcasses with high IMF grading above USDA Prime. While doing further research on the web, he ran across the Takeda genetics and was very pleased with the bulls he saw. This eventually led to him meeting Dr. Hyde Kojima from Japan who is the managing director for Mr. Takeda’s Australian operation. Dr. Kojima introduced Don to Mr. Takeda’s rotational breeding program and spent a lot of time working with Don to teach him about Wagyu genetics.
For the last several years Triangle B Ranch has been building its Fullblood Wagyu cow herd using primarily Takeda genetics. In 2010, the ranch will have about 100 head of premium quality Fullblood Wagyu females and a dozen top bulls. The five year goals are to acquire additional grazing land and to grow the operation to 300 head of females and two dozen bulls. In addition to selling Wagyu genetics, the ranch plans to sell Fullblood Wagyu beef products commercially in three to four years. Effective January 1, 2010, the ranch will conduct operations under Triangle B Ranch, Inc., a Texas corporation.