Being able to adapt is the story of M.D. of Willow Creek ranchers and feedlot operators, Don Lowe and his family.

Lowe Ranches and Bear Trap Feeders near Nanton won one of this year's BMO Farm Family Awards at this year's Calgary Stampede.

Family patriarch, Don Lowe, says they got into the feedlot business almost by accident after a drought in the early 1908's forced them to put most of their crops up as silage.

"We salvaged that crop. We had a pile of silage, we put it on a piece of land with no buildings. We started digging post holes in late September. We finished digging post holes in late December of that year and then cattle showed up."

Lowe says after deciding to turn some of their operation into a feedlot during the droughts of the early 1980's, he and his brother got a visit from a stranger one day in November while they were down in a hole.

"I remember looking up from a waterline trench one day and there's a guy, it was cold, November, there's a guy in kind of a suit, overcoat overcoat type thing. He looked down the hole and says "What're you doing down there?" And it was cold and I said "We're building a feedlot." That guy, who turned out to be a feed buyer, we did a lot of business with for years. But he says "I figured something's coming of this."

Lowe, his wife and two sons, along with big brother Bob, and another Brother operate the mixed grain, cattle and feedlot operation on 27,000 acres, just west of Nanton.

 

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