R.G. Shipley at 101: Getting Back Into the Cattle Business

He had been proprietor of this farm since December 1929, when he inherited it at seventeen. By 2013 he had been running it for eighty-four years.

And then he said he had been thinking about getting back into the cattle business.

Why that sentence is the whole story

At 101, most people are not forming new commercial plans. The sentence assumes a future, assumes capability, and assumes somebody will act on it. All three turned out to be correct.

“I mean, he was still learning at 102 years old. Uh, he was still curious. He was figuring out how to use the smartphone in his pocket.”

Gray Shipley

That is not a sentimental description. He was figuring out a smartphone in his hundreds and still learning at 102.

What happened next

Shipley Farms LLC formed around 2013. The herd launched in the summer of 2014 with six-month-old calves. He remained proprietor until August 2015.

So the beef business most customers know began as the last project of a man who had already run the place for eight decades, and he lived to see it running.

What it takes to start a herd

Six-month-old calves in summer 2014 means the first beef was years away. Cattle do not shorten their timeline because a business plan would prefer it. Whoever signs off on that has to be comfortable with a return that arrives long after the decision.

A man of 101 committing to a schedule like that is either very optimistic or very used to how farms work. Both, probably.

What he had already been right about

“Granddad was an early proponent of rotational grazing and, uh, it's now called regenerative agriculture, uh, adaptive grazing. Uh, I've started to use their term redemptive agriculture.”

Gray Shipley

Rotational grazing, decades before it was called regenerative agriculture. The same instinct that walked a bull up from Virginia and the same one that said, at 101, that there was something left to do here.

Why the farm still talks about it

“Uh, it's the standard that my granddad set for us, which is, you know, keep your promises, do what you say you're going to do. Don't take shortcuts, uh, and, and do the right thing.”

Gray Shipley

Because it sets the bar. A business started by a man in his hundreds has no excuse for treating any of this as too hard.

The one most people mean by steak

Signature Huston Ribeye

Our signature dry-aged ribeye. Heavily marbled, thick, and forgiving of a minute either way.

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His record-keeping is in granddad's notebook, and the full family line in Shipley Farms since 1872.