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CapitalPress.com
December 1, 2017
California ranch family living history
For the Capital Press
Tom Orvis and his fami-
ly’s story goes back five gen-
erations.
“The Snow Ranch was
formed in 1873, after William
Snow completed approxi-
mately 15 years of putting the
properties together,” Orvis
said.
The land is a 5,000-acre
block in both Stanislaus and
Calaveras counties. Snow’s
daughter, Mary Ada, met C.B.
Orvis, a veterinarian from
Wisconsin, in the 1890s when
he came from Stockton in a
surrey to doctor a horse, he
said. “They married soon af-
ter.”
Their son, William Snow
Orvis, was born in 1896. At
that time, they raised sheep
and cattle. The registered Her-
eford herd was established
in 1918.
Today the
Snow Ranch is
headquartered
near Farming-
ton, Calif.
The ranch
Tom Orvis
raises regis-
tered Horned
and Polled Herefords and
commercial Black Baldie
crossbreds. The herd includes
200 mother cows and 140 re-
placement heifers, he said.
The operation calves in
fall and spring and takes cat-
tle to Bloods Meadow in Bear
Valley in the summer.
They also operate Orvis
Ranch Beef — a grass-fed
beef purveyor.
They use herd bulls and
artificial insemination to man-
age their genetic base. They
also lease part of the ranch to
Diestel Turkey Ranch for tur-
key production.
The operation sells wean-
ling bulls to customers for
breeding and maintains the
registered herd through the
female line and home-grown
herd bulls. They also sell tur-
key manure to growers.
The days are long, Tom
Orvis said. The work — re-
pairing fences, working cat-
tle, calving — starts at day-
light and often goes into dark.
In spite of the hours, he
would encourage anyone to
go into ranching with one
warning: “If you don’t love it,
don’t do it.”
“The constant threat of
drought tops the list of chal-
lenges that face California
livestock industry,” he said.
“Rules and regulations com-
plete the list. They seem use-
less and time-consuming and
have fees attached that never,
in my opinion, seem to ac-
complish anything.”
Courtesy of Tom Orvis
Tom Orvis and his family raise registered Horned and Polled Herefords in Stanislaus and Calaveras
counties, Calif. “If you don’t love ranching, don’t do it,” he says.
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