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Greensboro Family's Champion Highlands

Greensboro Bend, Vermont - July 24, 2009

A little treat usually does the trick, but if the cows don't come, the horn usually does the trick.

"Well my dad started this farm in 1967 raising Highlands," Ray Shatney explained.

Just off Route 16 in the hills of Greensboro Bend you'll find Shat-Acres.

"We do breeding stock and we do sell beef," Shatney said.

The Shatneys started with one $50 Highland from South Dakota. Four decades later, you'll find national champions grazing on this hillside.

"They used to be just a novelty at the shows," Shatney said. "But they have pretty much taken over the shows not only because of what they look like but there long hair and long horns. They are excellent beef."

That's grass-fed beef. Some are raised for slaughter; others are kept for show stock. Ray Shatney will travel the country showing what his 98-year-old dad started in the 1960s.

"He had an eye for cattle. What was good and what wasn't," Shatney said.

And it's mostly good. There are big bulls that will log long hours on the road this year.

"This is Cinnamon Bear. He is two years old. Turned two years old in April. He is one of our show animals. He will ride twelve-thousand miles this year," Shatney said.

Animals that will be judged on their size, their horns, their coat.

"And how they adapt to the landscape. These cattle have to be able to walk long distances for feed not only here because they are grass fed but in Scotland where they are native too, so they have to be able to travel. They are not a feedlot animal," Shatney explained.

Slow grazers that are attention getters here in the Green Mountains and the world.

"People of the United States and of the world have seen what these cattle can accomplish," Shatney said.

If you would like to meet the cows in person you can on Sunday. The farmers will hold an appreciation day from noon until 4 p.m. at their Plainfield farm. It's at 487 Gray Road - 802-454-7384.

Anson Tebbetts - WCAX News