The Swanson family from Shipwheel Cattle Company welcomes you to North Central Montana.

We are a family operation run by Klint and Lori Swanson along with our kids Austin and Bree. Our ranches are located in North Central MT, 60 miles from Canada. Our sale barn and grow yard are 15 miles southwest of Chinook at the Clear Creek Ranch. Most of our registered cows reside at the Snake Creek Ranch at Lloyd MT, 30 miles South of Chinook, in the Bear Paw Mountains.

OUR HISTORY

Our family’s roots run many generations deep into Angus history. Klint’s grandpa was one of the first cowmen to bring the Angus cow to Northern Montana in 1945, making a transition from Herefords. Klint’s parents founded Apex Angus in the 60’s and began raising and marketing bulls from the registered cows they had purchased. The Shipwheel herd originated from two bred heifers given to Klint when he was 9 years old in 1984. Our registered herd has grown to nearly 500 cows from those 2 heifers along with 100 cows that we purchased from Dr. Gale Jellum from West Fork Angus in Chinook, MT. Klint and Lori were married in 1998 and moved to Lori’s parents place on Clear Creek South of Chinook in 2000. We continued to market bulls with Apex Angus until 2009 when the decision was made to go on our own and we formed Shipwheel Cattle Company.

Our first sale was a silent auction where we sold 25 yearling bulls. We have since grown and transitioned to a December sale and offer 100 18 month old bulls along with 150 to 200 bred females. We also market 60 private treaty bulls in the spring. Every bull we market is bred, born and raised here. We take raising seedstock very seriously and consider it a responsibility to provide our customers with genetics that are going to keep them profitable. We thank our many customers that have supported us along the way and look forward to making new friendships in the future.

OUR PROGRAM

We run 1200 mother cows with 500 being registered. With limited feed and labor resources, our cows are required to run in a true commercial environment and range calve on their own and graze winter pastures after weaning until the snow gets too deep. Our cattle graze native short grass as well as tall grass and travel in some steep terrain. Our climate can be extreme with temperatures ranging from -60°F to 110°F.

Our main focus is breeding sound, problem free cattle with longevity and fertility. A medium framed, easy fleshing, 1350 pound cow is ideal here. Every registered cow is A.I’d once then put with our top clean-up bulls. We put in approximately 100 embryos into our commercial cows from our elite donors every year. Retaining the qualities that the black Angus cow is famous for is our priority.