With a commitment to family, a love of ranching and unmatched perseverance, seven generations of the Skinner family have raised cattle in the high desert of Jordan Valley, Ore.
Vast and expansive describe these parts of the West, where some counties are as big as states. For example, Malheur County, where the family’s land is located in the southeast part of the state, is bigger than New Hampshire.
The ranch sits at the end of a gravel road, sandwiched between sagebrush pastures with the view of lava rock vistas on the horizon. Hay fields and marshy meadows appear almost out of nowhere proving water is vital to sustaining the community, livestock and wildlife that call this place home.
Meet the Skinner Family
From an early age, brothers Silas and Mike Skinner knew they wanted to ranch. Both attended Eastern Oregon University, returning in 1998 and 2005, respectively, to join their parents, Bob Jr. and Karen, who still reside on the ranch. Today, the brothers manage the day-to-day operations of raising cattle and hay. In addition, Silas’ two sons, Kasen and Kort, have joined the ranch full time.
Kasen says when he went to college, he dreamed about coming back to ranch. He eventually returned in 2020. Today, he and his wife, Jayce, are expecting a baby and will be bringing up the eighth generation on the ranch.
“I try to know the cows to the best of my ability,” Kasen says. “That’s what I love to do. The cowherd is my favorite.”
Kort, the newest full-time rancher in the family, enjoyed sports more than ranching as a youth.
“I got a dog when I was 11, so I started helping move cows,” he says. “Literally one of the reasons I never wanted to miss moving cows was because I had my dog.”
Kort was in high school during the pandemic, so he was able to turn out cows and participate in brandings, which was a major factor in his decision to return to the ranch. He graduated from the University of Idaho with a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness in December 2023.
“I’m really interested in the marketing part of the business,” he says.
Silas and his wife, Tracy, also have a daughter, Regann, who works in ag lending, and Mike and his wife, Kelsi, have a son, Jayden, and a daughter, Ryann.
All family members help during the busy summer hay season and spring brandings.
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Skinner Family Ranch
Maggie Malson
Building on a foundation
With each generation, education, efficiency and expansion have played a role.
“Education has always been important to the family,” says Bob Skinner Jr., the fifth generation. “My dad had an agriculture degree from Oregon State. I went to the College of Idaho on a basketball and football scholarship and got a degree in business with a minor in accounting. We’ve encouraged our kids and grandkids to also get an education outside of the ranch before they came back.”
When Bob returned to the ranch after college in 1972, he transitioned the bookwork to a computer. Prior to that, Bob Sr. kept meticulous ledgers, but he encouraged his son to try new things, evolve efficiencies and expand where he could.
Bird’s eye view
Bob developed a love for flying and purchased an airplane, which saves time checking water and cattle. The family runs cattle on private and federal Bureau of Land Management land. The public land covers rough terrain with nearly 4,000 miles of pipeline just on their side of Malheur County.
“It would take all day to check the pipelines. I thought there had to be a better way,” Bob says. “My son Mike or I fly the pipelines every other day. We want to make sure there are no leaks and the tanks have water.”
Cattle can only go 24 hours without water, so frequent checks are a must.
“The cows can drink a tank dry or so low the calves can’t get to it, which almost guarantees they get pneumonia,” Bob says. “We’ve avoided a few wrecks because we could see the problem before it was a problem. The plane was an expensive investment, but our accountant says it has made us money.”
The plane also helps when gathering cattle off South Mountain.
“When I was gathering cattle growing up, it would take a couple weeks to get them all,” Bob explains. “We’d go out when it was hot, which wasn’t good, but we could catch them at water. Then we’d have to go back and get another handful at a time. Now, we have four to five guys on horseback, our radios and the plane. We can locate the cows and they can get them all in one sweep.”
In addition to the plane, the family uses drones to check cows in the brush.
“It’s easier to zoom in and see tag numbers or if there’s a problem with a calf when using a drone, rather than flying by in a plane at 120 mph,” says Kort Skinner, the seventh generation. “Drones pay for themselves quickly when you find a calf that’s cold or a cow calving.”
New generation, new ideas
With each generation’s return, they have brought additional ideas.
In the 1950s when Bob Sr. and his brother Dan took over shared management of the ranch from their parents, Kirtland and Johanna, they began focusing on increasing cowherd numbers and quality.
When Silas and Tracy returned to the ranch, they started evaluating cattle genetics again. The maternal qualities of the Red Angus breed appealed to them, and they purchased all red bulls in 2000 to begin phasing out Hereford genetics. Today, their cowherd remains red based, but the family is starting to incorporate Black Angus genetics by buying some of the neighbors’ cows to continue to expand.
“The Red Angus cow is a very good mother,” Silas says. “The Herefords didn’t have enough milk, and we had a lot of bottle calves. We also feed out all our cattle, and the Red Angus breed just does the best for us.”
Mike, the sixth generation, says he’s partial to the red cows too.
“I think they are definitely better mama cows,” he adds. “You can get more bang for your buck. We’d have to pay way more for a black bull of the same caliber.”
Heat and fly tolerance is also a plus with red cattle.
“You just don’t see the red ones as covered in flies,” Silas says. “A cow that’s not being bugged by flies has to be doing better.”
Calving ease has also been a huge factor. The family used to bring 300 heifers into a lot near the house and calve inside a barn. Silas admits it could turn into a mess quickly with 40 to 50 calves dropping a day.
Since 2017, the heifers have calved a few miles from the house out among the sagebrush pastures. The cows also calve on sagebrush, beginning in February with the majority in March.
“Calving out in the rocks where no one can watch them means calving ease is a very big factor for us,” Mike explains.
The brush provides protection from the wind and elements and helps eliminate sickness and scours, Silas adds.
The Skinners used artificial insemination for a few years, but it didn’t fit their operation, and they didn’t see much of an increase in genetics.
“It’s hard where we run our heifers to get them through the chute three to four times,” Silas says. “Instead, we try to buy the top 30% in our bulls and be on the leading edge of genetics. We have built our cowherd from scratch.”
When it comes to technology, the family most recently purchased an ultrasound machine.
“We preg August to the end of September or first of October,” says Silas, who has been preg checking since he was 22. “Thanks to the ultrasound machine, we have been able to identify and ship those open cows in August before the market goes down too much. We wean the calves, the trucks come and the cull cows are gone. We save the pasture. The ultrasound machine will probably pay for itself in a year or two.”
Fall time also means gathering cattle from pastures and allotments and weaning the calves marketed through Superior Livestock Auction’s Video Royale sale in July.
“They get one round of shots while still on the cows, then after a week or so we gather the pairs, sort off the calves and bring them back to the homeplace. The cows are turned back out for another 30 days or so,” Silas says.
This change in cattle management has helped with efficiency and animal care.
“We used to haul everything here, sort and wean, then take the cows back out to the brush, but this way, it’s less stressful on everyone. We’ll keep the calves in a feedlot on hay for about five days. They will get the rest of their shots, then we move them to the meadows to grow on grass.”
After about 30 days, the calves are weighed and sorted into groups of heifers and steers and shipped to buyers in November.
Land Investments
The Skinner family has always been progressive, and they’re not afraid to try something new or make changes when current systems aren’t working.
Through the years, they have cleared brush and rocks and leveled fields to turn wild hay meadows into alfalfa fields. They’ve installed pivots and pipelines and use a riser system to irrigate fields.
When you have more productive ground, you can have more cows, says Silas, the sixth generation.
In 1993, the family bought a ranch closer to town, which included additional cattle permits on BLM ground. They also drilled a well to irrigate hay ground.
“Drilling the well and fertilizing not only allowed us to produce more, but it also helped improve hay ground,” Bob says. “Our pastures come back better. If we can get everything wet a couple times, we get a huge amount of pasture. That helps put weight on calves. We’re able to produce all the feed we need here and sell some too.”
Matters of legacy
For the Skinner family, cattle ranching is truly a lifestyle.
“You have to love it to want to make a living at it,” Bob says.
It is a shared love of the land, the livestock and leaving a legacy that has unified the family since 1863.
Through the decades, the Skinners have been diligent when it comes to succession planning. Bob bought into the ranch as a partner with his dad and uncle in 1972 after returning from college. In 1979, the family worked with attorneys and changed the structure of the ranch to a family corporation to facilitate transitions.
When Bob Sr. and his wife, Sara, moved to a nursing home in 2009, Silas and Mike bought his shares and their two sisters’ shares. In 2020, the brothers purchased shares from their dad to pass on to the next generation.
Silas says keeping the lines of communication open among all family members is important.
“Everybody gets along with everyone,” he says. “That’s important to us. Mike and I usually talk in the morning about what the day might look like, and I talk to the boys. We all have our jobs and know what to do. Everybody works well together. If there are disagreements, we get through them.”
One thing the family has always done is paid everyone who works on the ranch, even the kids.
“We didn’t get a lot, but we always got paid,” Silas says. “That helped keep us interested in coming back. It’s a good life. We want to make a living and build something we can pass along.”
