Beckton History
Beckton is one of the oldest ranches in the Sheridan, Wyoming area. It came into Forbes family ownership in 1899, and has grown since then. The home ranch lies in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, near the original Bozeman Trail. The site of the current ranch headquarters once included a post office and flour mill, founded by George Beck, from whom came the name “Beckton”. George Beck’s house, built in 1887, now serves as the Beckton ranch office. In 1936, Waldo Forbes took over management of the Forbes
In 1954 this new breed was formally established when the Red Angus Association of America was founded with performance testing as the cornerstone of breed improvement. Waldo served as the first president of the association until his death at the end of 1955. Sal served as the association’s first Executive Secretary. Today Beckton is the oldest and one of the largest Red Angus herds in the country, running approximately 1050 mother cows, 350 replacement females, and 100+ bulls (as
family ranch. Waldo was interested in applying to beef cattle the ideas of performance testing and genetic selection for economically important traits. Waldo married Sal in 1939, just before World War II, and the two of them embarked on the undertaking that would make a contribution to the future direction of the beef industry — the establishment of an entirely new breed of cattle to be based on selection by performance traits of economic importance. They bought top red calves from 18 leading registered Black Angus herds across the United States, using these red cattle to build the foundation herd of a new breed that was independent of existing breed associations. During the next decade, Beckton added many more
well as several hundred deer and elk) on 15,000 deeded and State lease acres. Each year, much of the cowherd is moved to high mountain pastures in mid-summer. The ranch grows all its own hay, primarily as grass-alfalfa mixes. The forage and other resources are managed as much for information as for production. Simply put, we don’t manage the cattle to maximize weaning weights or even conception rates. Our business is maximizing information; therefore the cattle are pushed far beyond industry norms. For example, 90% of the main cowherd is bred in single sire pastures at a rate of 40-50 cows per bull. The other 10% of the cowherd is bred AI. Heifers are divided into groups of 20-30 per bull. All yearling bulls potentially
Beckton Larkabeau O “220” in 1959, the 1st Red Angus Bull at ABS.
red bulls and females from registered Black Angus herds. From early on, Beckton was active with crossbreeding their new Red Angus sires into their existing commercial Hereford herd, to create dual herds — one purebred Red Angus, and the other high-percentage Red Angus from the Hereford base. Today the two herds run side-by-side, sharing the use of our Red Angus sires.
entering our program are used with a heifer group first, for comparative progeny testing and calving ease evaluation. Every bull in our program must be able to be used without difficulty on first-calf heifers as well as older cows. Likewise, the stocking rate we use is higher than other purebred or commercial ranches would use in our area. The
Beckton Fall Production Sale
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