About Us

Welcome to Rocking R Red Angus!

Who we are...

Dan and Katie Reardon established Rocking R Red Angus in 2010. We recently moved our home and cattle ranch from Colorado to Western Nebraska. (See more about our Story Below.). Our ranch is a family operation, and we are proud to be raising our children in the western lifestyle. We are first generation ranchers bringing our dream to reality.

After graduating from college, we found ourselves in the medical field, which brought us to the Western slope of Colorado. Dan grew up in Arizona and Katie in New Mexico. But, we knew our true passion was the love of raising cattle and caring for our land. Ranching is hard, hard work, with never ending hours, but it becomes your being, your sustenance. It is a breath of fresh air, to be able to work side by side, with family, pursuing our passion and enjoying God’s creations.

Our children, Nolan and Lyla help daily on the ranch. They have become a huge part of Rocking R Ranch, and we couldn't do it without them. They both play an integral role. When not on the ranch, they are on the rodeo road. Both are very involved in High School and Junior High Rodeo, and are probably having Dad drive them to a rodeo.

How did you get into cattle?

We have a long history of Red Angus in our family. Dan’s mother grew up in Eastern Colorado and her family raised Red Angus cattle since she was a little girl. Dan’s father's family ran a sizable cattle operation in Southern Colorado during his high school days. Katie’s great grandfather raised cattle in Northern New Mexico. When our family moved to Western Colorado, we decided to get back into the cattle industry.

The first cows we purchased were a handful of commercial Red Angus cows. Then, we had the opportunity to purchase a small Registered Black Angus herd. We sold bulls for a number of years but decided to shift to Red Angus because of the rapid improvement in carcass quality provided by state-of-the-art Red Angus Genetics. Dan has always had an affinity for Red Angus cows so the decision was easy. We sold our registered Black Angus herd and purchased the best registered Red Angus genetics we could find. Through many sales and private treaty transactions, we established our herd and have continued to add to the herd every year by keeping our own replacement heifers and adding a few outside high quality mature cows each fall.

Colorado to Nebraska: Part 1- Our Story

WE WANT TO TAKE YOU ALL ALONG ON OUR JOURNEY. SO HERE'S OUR STORY…

Rocking R Red Angus was established in 2010. We started with a small group of cattle knowing we wanted to raise quality beef for our family. Both Dan and Katie are a generation removed from ranching, but we have always been foodies and knowing where our food came from was of an extreme importance to us. So following in our grandparents footsteps, we began our journey.

When Dan's mother passed away in 2014, Dan felt a calling to raise Red Angus genetics as Inis' family had always done. In being medical professionals for many years, you could say we are nerds for the science and genetics behind the cattle. We fell in love with the Red Angus breed, and the docility to raise these cattle around our family.

For years, we have focused on High-Altitude genetics, and raising quality Cattle and Beef for our seedstock operation. We have grown to have Annual Bull Sales. We have loved the mountains of Colorado, although challenging, it has been our home for many years. Our ranches have been over 2 hours apart, making constant traveling and trucking of cattle.

OUR DECISION TO MOVE ALONG…

A few years back, we finally sat down, and decided ranching was 100% in our hearts, and by now we were all in. But, we knew what we were doing was not sustainable. Ranching is hard, but we are crazy and LOVE it. We love that our family can all do it together.

Our ranch in Montrose, our home place, was where we wintered the cattle and calved. As our herd has grown we ran out of room, and the city was slowly growing out to where we were, making it hard to find lease ground to keep our cattle spread out. We didn't have the facilities we needed and calving was becoming very challenging.

Our ranch in Gunnison, our summer grazing property, had views you could only dream of, with water galore. But unfortunately, the grass was not enough for our cattle. All the forest permits in the area were taken, and we knew it wouldn't be sustainable to truck the cattle further.

We initially thought, we would find a neighboring ranch to attach to our high country property. But deal after deal just didn't work in our favor. And we started praying on it, because it was getting harder and harder to raise our cattle.

So, we looked at every possible ranch in the West in our budget. Every spare minute we had was driving through Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana. And we showed up at every ranch with open minds, knowing it would take a lot of work. Every ranch ended up having a major flaw that would not make sense for our family or our operation.

We had so many ranches that didn't work out, so when people asked what we were doing, we didn't say much. Because we were tired of getting our hopes up, with the fear of it not working out. We didn't let out the news about moving our ranch until we were 100% sure.

We continued to pray as a family.

We were feeling pretty discouraged, and now our home in Montrose had sold, and our ranch in Gunnison was under-contract. But we had no idea where we were moving. It was hard, not going to lie. We were in Las Vegas at Nolan's roping competition, when we got a call on a new ranch listed in Nebraska. Nebraska never even crossed our minds, neither of us had ever even visited. But, we said let's go take a look.

I remember getting in the truck after looking at the ranch, and Dan just said this is our place, and I felt a sense of calm. We couldn't believe we were in such an unfamiliar place, but it just felt right. So we began our new journey..

Part 2 Movin' On.. Colorado to Nebraska

MOVING A RANCH, MOVING A LIFETIME

Leaving Montrose, Colorado wasn't easy. We put our heart and souls into our home. We gutted and remodeled the house, and built the corrals and barn from the ground up. We built our business there, we established Rocking R Red Angus, and our high altitude herd.

It was years of work, and leaving that was probably my hardest moment. I raised my babies in that house, we had countless family holidays, the memories are endless. And of course the friendships made.

It all happened so quickly, we were set to close on our Montrose home in just over a month. I looked at Dan, and said you're insane! Ha! We have to pack this house up in a month, go to the Vegas competition for a week in between, and move out prior to Christmas.

But our motto is and always has been, Everything Happens for a Reason.

So, we bit the bullet, packed it up into a large storage unit and moved into a tiny home. Because calving season was about to start and we were able to lease our ground through the spring. Time to start calving!

(Thank goodness rodeo had taught us to live in tight quarters, as we do most weekends, but man we missed having a couch! ha)

NEBRASKA ON OUR MIND

A few months later, we sold our Gunnison ranch. Which meant, more packing, and more moving. Oh the stuff, it was endless! I didn't know how we were going to make a move happen.

By this time, we were keeping an open mind in case anything else came on the market, but Nebraska was on our mind. We just couldn't stop thinking about Nebraska. Even though, it was such new territory to us. We were used to irrigation, and dry land farming is completely foreign. But we could have an all in one operation. No trucking would be involved and the facilities were great.

Plus, there are opportunities for our kids, which is a big deal for us. We aren't so far from town that makes life extremely difficult. And of course, we needed to be around rodeo!

LET'S GO!

It was time to plan for the move! We aren't just moving stuff, we are moving a ranch! We had to plan it all perfectly. It started with the moving truck, to make sure all our stuff got here. And of course that didn't happen in just one truck, thank goodness for amazing friends who drove 8 hours and multiple trailers. We love you all and could never had made this happen without you, you know who you are!!

The animals. Oh the trucks we needed to make this happen, and to make it all work out. Minimal stress, was our top priority for all the animals; cattle, calves, and horses. We had to plan that we had horses to gather and load the trucks, but then make it to Nebraska before the cattle pots. That way we could make sure they were put into proper corrals or pastures. Plus remember, we were just finishing up with calving season, so we traveled with very young calves. Mamas and babies had to be put into seperate areas on the trucks, to make sure no one got trampled.

To say we were worried is an understatement. But thank god, they all made it! Our next concern was that the mama cows would remember which calf was theirs and pair up properly. Everyone is doing really well. The mama cows definitely had some stress on them, and made sure their calves were given the proper nutrition. But all seem to be bouncing back and enjoying the ample amount of room.

Next, we needed our equipment. More stuff! You can't feed without a tractor, and all the implements to go with it. We are finally getting our last truck loads of equipment, this has been a process. We are almost there, a few more trailer loads of miscellaneous stuff, and I think we will be pretty close to complete. Plus some of our yearling cattle still back in Montrose.

I would say we are getting settled. You never buy a ranch without knowing a lot of work is going to be put in. So we are fixing fence, setting up pens as we want, cleaning up junk, and the list goes on! But, it's new to us, it's our livelihood, and we are excited to make Nebraska our home. It's going to take time to be everything we want, but that's life, and we'll make it happen.

Part 3 What's Next for Rocking R…

Colorado to Nebraska

OUR HERD IS WHAT MAKES OUR BEEF

Quality genetics, make quality beef, and that has always been what we stand behind at Rocking R Beef. This starts from the ground up. In being a registered Red Angus operation, we are able to test our cattle's genetics and make sure the cattle we choose for our beef program have high marbling and high carcass qualities.

We are excited to be able to have the facilities to give our cattle the proper nutrition they need to make great beef. We will have complete control over the rations fed. Our cattle will continue to be raised on high quality pasture in the Wildcat Hills, with fresh water, and more space than they've ever had to roam. Everyday we continue to strive to improve upon our high quality Homegrown Beef.

All of our products will continue to be packed in sustainable packaging with dry ice and will arrive within 2 days.

We look forward to being able to offer new products!

Above all we want to get to know YOU, it makes our day!

We love meeting our customers and are Honored to be your Ranchers, and We Thank You for choosing Rocking R Beef!