From Drought to Greener Pastures: Fillmore Ranch
A feature article on the 2018 International Limousin Congress host ranches.
By Mallory Blunier, NALF director of public relations & media
As I was making my way down to Boone, Colorado, each
mile closer to the town had me asking, “how does anyone
raise anything down here?” The land stretches for miles
in each direction and no matter what way you look there
are lots of cactus, toughs of grass spotted throughout the
bare ground, and brown for miles and miles. There are
a few rolling hills and some buttes, but not much else.
Most people would take one look at this land and mark
it off as a lost cause, but not the Fillmore family. Fillmore
Ranch doesn’t let the dry climate and rough land slow
them down from raising high-quality Limousin cattle. children. They have two full-time employees who have
been helping out with the cattle operation for five years.
I spent most of the day talking and touring the ranch
with Brent Fillmore, a fourth-generation rancher, who
runs the Limousin cattle operation with his father, Larry.
Brent lives on the ranch with his wife, Angie, and their two The ranch started out as a farming and cattle operation. In the
mid-50’s the Fillmore’s doubled the amount of deeded pasture
acres in an effort to move towards just focusing on the cattle
side of the operation. In the 100-year span of the ranch, the
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Fillmore Ranch started by raising a variety of different
commercial cattle. They brought home some Limousin
cattle from a sale barn and Brent recalls not being able to
get in the same pen as them, “they were crazy,” he states.
The Fillmores made up their mind that the reputation that
Limousin cattle are crazy doesn’t have to be true and set
out to raising Limousins. Today, the 17,000 acres, sustains
400 head of cattle, with 350 being registered Limousin.