Our Story

Flying R Farms is a small family operated Polled Hereford cow-calf ranch with irrigated corn and soybean rotation.  Our acreage is located in Kaw River Valley with pastures, meadows, and dryland cropland near Willard and Dover, Kansas.  The farm and ranch are owned and operated by Martin and Jane McClelland.  Jane McClelland is a native of Rossville, Kansas.

The Kaw Valley farm has been passed down through the surviving women of Jane's family since 1872.  The name of the ranch stems from her father's, Clyde Rogers, family brand.  Polled Herefords returned to the ranch in 1998 after Jane and Martin McClelland moved to the ranch full-time with a registered spring calving, cow-calf operation.  This reactivated great Uncle DM Howard's interest in Polled Herefords.  

Martin and Jane live in the "new" house which was built in 1915, with indoor plumbing and a Thomas A Edison Lighting Company 12-volt DC electric system, that provided power for the house and (at the time) new electric car.  Martin and Jane's son and daughter have forged careers off the farm (Wes McClelland (son) works in politics in Washington, DC & Allison McClelland (daughter) is a physician in Phoenix, Arizona).   We also partner with neighbor Derek and Charlotte Brunin to make F1 Black Baldies.   Now that Derek is out of the Marines (don't call him an ex-Marine) he will be handling the grass as well as their first child. 

In 2003, we became a genetic partner with Star Lake Herefords of Skiatook, Oklahoma.  We purchased calving ease Bodil out of their winning 2004 Denver Cariload andover Oline122Lson, OdieRick, that was in the 2005 Denver winning Cariload. These bulls were to complement our CSBoomer29F daughters. 

Our goal for both our Herefords and F1 program is to produce fault free females.  We do not show cattle, but we want to create better dams more quickly.  We made a big step toward that goal when we flushed one of our Bodil dams of distinction, 2BO9, to MSU Revolution 4 Run 2010.  Our current senior sire, EPIC, is doing everything very well.  Whenever your world starts improving by leaps and bounds, it is a good idea to take a minute and find out why.  Our herd reflects 3 ideas: 

1.  Life is too sharp to put up with cows with bad attitudes.
2. Never invest your time or money in a bull without seeing his dam.
3. Raise your cattle on pasture and not from a food bank.