About Stickley Cattle Company
Raising Registered Texas Longhorns and Selling Longhorn Beef
Farming has been passed down for generations in our family and the art of raising livestock on our family farm in Northern Virginia. My parents moved to Southwest Virginia in 1983 for my father CD Stickley to pursue a career with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. In 1995 my parents bought a small farm in Southwest Virginia that we raised cattle, horses, goats, etc.
Starting at age 10, I raised my first Holstein bull calf on a bottle that my dad bought me at the livestock market for $30 dollars. Continuing to grow up on the farm my dad always taught me the value of taking excellent care of your animals. Through high school I helped on farm but never had the money to purchase but a couple beef Holstein steers. After graduating college and finding a career with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries owning my own farm never left my mind.
I started raising/ buying stocker beef cattle. The market prices where up and down making it very difficult to get started. My mind began to wonder I need to raise something different than all these other big farmers (quality not quantity). So, I knew a guy near my house that raised some Longhorns just for fun and I went to talk with him. I began doing research on Longhorns and asking questions.
Why don't more people have longhorns? After doing months of research on Longhorn farms and Longhorn farmers in Virginia. The first person I talked to in the registered longhorn world is Bear Davidson at G&G Longhorns. In January 2017 I went to G&G to meet Bear and look at the cattle. I was completely overwhelmed with questions. Bear said what do you like? I had not any idea what I liked. I told Bear I just want to get my feet wet with a few cows and have a marketable product in a year. I bought four cows from G&G Longhorns.
I still had some Holstein steers for my safety net and was made fun of by all the locals. Why do you want cattle with them horns they ain't worth anything. In March 2017 I sold all my Holstein steers and invested more in Registered Texas Longhorns. Since then my herd is still growing and these cattle are a blast to raise. I have also met some great people along the way and look forward to building a great relationship with fellow breeders.
What are our future plans? Right now we are continuing to push our herd for the best genetics we can afford as well as keeping our herd growing in numbers (100-120 total). We have had such success with our premium longhorn beef and people in our area enjoy it so much. Can't thank everyone enough for their support. I plan to keep premium longhorn beef in Southwest Virginia as long as possible. This has gave us a very successful alternate for our longhorns that are not marketable premium breeding stock.
If you have anymore questions about our operation or would like the come see soon of our longhorns. Please doesn't hesitate to ask. We love talking about our special breed of cattle. We want everyone to come see our operation to feel great about what your purchasing from us whether its a registered longhorn or healthy longhorn beef.