Young Cattle Company: From bare ground to a thriving cattle operation

By Brianna Smith

When Rick and Jayne Young purchased their Belmont County farm in 1995, there wasn’t much to the place besides rolling hills and plenty of potential.

“It was stripped down. There were no fences, no nothing. It was all bare ground,” Rick said. “We made our schedule, and then we just started building from there.”

The couple purchased about 230 acres of reclaimed strip-mined ground in southeastern Ohio with the goal of building a thriving cattle operation. Together, the couple worked around the clock, building fences, installing water lines, constructing their home and barns, and transforming the once-barren property into productive pasture.

The move to Ohio had been years in the making. Rick and Jayne had established a cow herd in West Virginia but were ready to expand by the mid-1990s.

“I told my wife I’d like to move over to Ohio,” Rick said. “She said, ‘Well, if you can find a piece of ground that we like, we’ll move.’ We found this piece of property and when we were in Arizona on a cattlemen tour eating breakfast. My phone rang, and the gentleman sold me the piece of ground while I was having breakfast. So, I went back in and told her she was going to be happy because when we got home, we’d be moving.”

Jayne was the primary herdsman alongside their two sons for many years, as Rick had a full-time job at the power plant for almost four decades. Jayne managed most of the day-to-day requirements and responsibilities, with Rick joining in during the evening.

“I could never have done all of this without her,” Rick said. “I worked at the power company for 38 years and I could only do this work at night.”

As the farm took shape, so did the business. The Youngs initially focused on order buying before expanding into a commercial herd of approximately 450 brood cows while also backgrounding thousands of stockers each year. Over time, the operation shifted away from the cow herd to focus primarily on feeder calf backgrounding. The couple purchases calves from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky, then focuses on preparing them for the next stage of production.

“I buy calves that are anywhere from 450 lb. to 800 lb., but preferably in the 600 to 700 lb. range,” Rick said. “They come here to my farm and then they go out on pasture during the summer and in the winter they are fed silage and grain.”

Rick said every group of purchased cattle is retained a minimum of 30 days up to 90 days before being marketed, allowing time to monitor health, complete vaccination protocols and ensure calves are ready for their next destination. The operation’s reputation is built on healthy cattle, with most calves eventually moving to feedlots in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa.

“I try to buy all preconditioned calves if I can, and it really, really pays off,” Rick said. “Our death loss was less than 1% last year, so it was one of the best years we ever had.”

While animal health is critical to the operation, Rick said relationships have been just as important to Young Cattle Company’s success. Much of the business has been built over decades on repeat customers and trust.

“Everything we pretty much do is on a handshake,” Rick said. “I have a lot of good customers, a lot of good people I deal with.”

Many producers simply call Rick when they have calves to market. Years of working together have built enough confidence that, in many cases, they haul cattle to Belmont County without negotiating a price ahead of time.

“They bring their cattle. They don’t even ask me what they’re going to get for them,” Rick said. “I’ve dealt with them for years… I treat them fair and everybody’s happy.”

Caring for the cattle has always gone hand in hand with caring for the land. Today, the Youngs manage approximately 3,000 acres of pasture. Through the years, the Youngs installed more than 20,000 fence posts and 628,000 feet of high-tensile fence, dividing the farm into 57 paddocks for rotational grazing. The fences also keep cattle out of ponds and streams while providing fresh water through strategically placed troughs.

In coordination with the Ohio EPA, Young created nutrient management plans to restore the strip-mines to lush pastures using bio-solids. He also built heavy use pads for feeding areas to prevent erosion. Those stewardship efforts earned Young Cattle Company the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Environmental Stewardship Award for the Eastern Region in 2009 and the 2014 National Stocker Award from BEEF Magazine, both awards Young is proud to have received.

However, perhaps even more rewarding to Young than the awards on the wall is watching his granddaughters have an interest in cattle. Avery and Madison Young are sisters who are already making waves of their own in the industry.

At 14, Madison is deeply involved in the family’s registered cattle operation. She and Avery manage approximately 60 cows with a focus on producing high-quality show cattle, selecting genetics, making marketing decisions, and daily animal care.

“We make the decisions on AI-ing all of our cows, which bulls to use and which cow to which bull,” Madison said. “We just recently got our herd up to where we can actually show them, and we’re investing in good quality bulls and cows.”

Twelve-year-old Avery has followed closely behind her older sister, learning the same skills while developing her own passion for the cattle business. She credits Madison with helping teach her everything from caring for cattle to preparing them for the show ring.

“Probably my best memory of raising cattle is getting my first cow and getting to learn how to take care of it and how to show, because she (Madison) got to learn everything before me,” Avery said. “She helped me do all that.”

The sisters recently had all their efforts recognized at the 2026 Ohio State Fair, where Madison was recognized as showing the Champion Mainetainer Bull in the open show and Premier Exhibitor for the Maintainer breed.  

A few years ago, Rick was diagnosed with a blood cancer. The young girls’ responsibilities on the farm changed dramatically overnight.

“It was a little scary,” she said. “We really took on learning how to do vaccinations, learning what to breed the cows to, learning genetics and that kind of stuff. It was hard, but it was actually kind of neat to learn all that. That’s when I really began to like doing all this and want to do this more throughout my life.”

Madison hopes to pursue a career in animal science, while Avery also sees a future working with livestock. As they continue growing their registered herd and marketing show cattle, Rick is confident the future of the operation is in good hands.

“They’re very smart,” he said. “They know when one’s sick. They know when they need doctored. They can pull a calf. They can pass a tube for bloat. There’s not too much they can’t do.”

For Rick, watching the next generation embrace the cattle industry has become one of the most rewarding parts of building Young Cattle Company.

“Raising cattle is just in my DNA. It’s all I know,” he said. “And those two girls… Well, I don’t know what I’d do without them.”