Our main focus at Leewood Ranch is breeding cattle that work in the commercial cattle business. We want cattle that are functional, fertile, sound footed and easy fleshing. The goal is our bulls to work for our customers and continue to work for years. With the extensive use of AI, embryos and our walking sires we can offer a very good selection; Reds, Blacks, Full Flecks and Fullbloods. We implant 70 to 90 embryos each year, that are sourced from some of the top Simmental breeders in Canada and we also flush several of our own donors each year. For 2024-2025, our herd is around 500 cows that we calve in January to March. The cow herd is about 200 commercial cows and 300 papered cows. Like our customers, we don’t like extra work so we use more proven sires and don’t treat the purebreds different than the rest of the herd. We calve, feed, breed and pasture are purebreds with the commercial herd. We focus our efforts on the commercial cattlemen in mind and have bulls from calving ease to performance.

Our Bull sale will be March 22, 2025 at the farm; where we sell approximately 60 bulls and 150 replacement heifer calves.

If you’re ever passing by please stop in as we always enjoy touring the pastures and pens. The coffee is always on and the fridge is full.

Our family has been in the Mannville area since the early 1900s. Nelson Arnold came to New York as a child with his father and mother around 1895-97. For some reason he came and settled in the Mannville area and started a family farm. His son Clayton (wife Grace) farmed near Minburn; AB. Clayton had mostly Shorthorn cattle and grain farmed. His son Laurence married Maryann Gartner who started farming and doing all kinds of jobs to grow their farm. Laurence was driving bus and living in Mannville when they bought 4 quarters from the Hill Family. Not too long after, Laurence started Leewood Ranch with his son Howard. Howard and wife Debbie took over the Morrison homestead two miles west of Laurence and Maryann. (Where Maryann had grown up and her father was a hired hand for Jim Morrison. In the early days there were many breeds of cattle at Leewood Ranch.

Laurence had Shorthorn, angus and later tried charolais bulls. Howard started out with horned Herford cattle and later had tried just about every breed. Howard and Laurence switched over to Fullblood bulls when they started showing up in the 70s. Laurence and Howard grew there herd to about 500 head. In 1990 Laurence passed suddenly and Howard, Debbie and Maryann continued building Leewood Ranch. Howard and Debbie Started selling Simmental bulls off farm in the early 1990s to 2008. In 2008 the herd was down sized and Howard just raised bulls for his own use and a few neighbours.

Howard had bought a large group of purebred cows from the D Bar C dispersal in 2010 (KAD 8100U still here in 2025) and started raising more bulls. Their son Colt started his cattle herd in 2011 and in 2012 started buying purebreds. In 2012 Leewood Ranch started implanting purebred embryos and AIing select cows (which pissed off Howard...lol). In 2008 the herd was 100 head and by 2015 the herd was 700 head. In 2016 we sold 130 commercial cows to Jason McEroy.

We had our first online bull sale in 2016 with 16 bulls and 77 replacement heifer. In 2017 we were invited to start a Bull sale with Kuzio Farms and Sunset Simmentals. In 2019 we moved the bull sale to the farm and we will be having our 9th bull sale, March 22 2025. Howard passed in January of 2022 after a long battle with cancer. Colt continues to run the farm with wife Shannon and Mother Debbie. For 2025 Leewood Ranch will be running around 500 head of cattle and seeding 1500ac of cropland.