Feature
Gates Limousin:
Back to the country for the Gates family
By Rebecca Colnar
When Gary Gates graduated from high school, he
swore he didn’t want to ranch for a living having
grown up on his parent’s ranch in the 1970s and
1980s. An engineering degree led to a career that
took him to Washington state, Idaho and Colorado.
In that time, Gary got married and started a
family. During trips to take the kids to see the
grandparents
something
interesting
happened.
The Gates
kids decided
that life on
the ranch had
more appeal
than life in
the Denver
suburbs.
“Our children
(now 23 and
12) wanted
to stay in
Montana
more
than back home, and my parents could use
a little more help, so in 2007 we moved
back to Montana,” said Gates who now runs
Gates Limousin Ranch with his mother.
Gates wife, Brandi, explains that since neither
she nor Gary were city kids, moving back to
Montana didn’t take much convincing. “It was
something we wanted to do. What’s in your
blood is tough to get away from and our kids
loved it. As the next generation you want to
carry on that tradition. In the city everything
seems convenient and you think it’s easier. But
16 | MARCH 2018
when we moved back to Montana, we realized
how stressful life had been in Denver.”
Ranching is certainly in Gary’s blood as his parents
started ranching around 1960. He and his five
siblings all helped on the ranch, which originally
had Hereford cattle. In the early 1970s one of their
neighbors had
some Limousin
cattle which
were first
introduced
into the United
States in 1969.
“He bragged
about the
Limousin breed
so the parents
decided to try
a bull and liked
the results,”
Gary said. “At
that time my
parents were
still strictly a
commercial cow-calf operation and every
3-5 years they had to rotate bulls. We had
also used Simmental, Angus and Herefords,
working to get a good crossbred cow. I think
they tried about every combination there was.
About 20 years ago they started using almost
exclusively Limousin bulls on their commercial
herd and were pleased with the results.”
The Roscoe-area rancher says that although
their ranch still primarily raises commercial
cattle, they also are seedstock breeders with
a registered Limousin herd. They find their