LEA-White Farms Registered Highland Cattle

LEA-White Farms is located on 300+ rolling acres in Charlotte Michigan. We have had registered Highland cattle since 1983.  Except for the few exceptional cattle that we bring in from other breeders, our stock are born and raised on our farm.  We produce our own feed, so we know exactly what and when our cows have been fed.  We raise our animals humanely and believe we have an obligation to take good care of our charges.  While we expect our cattle to work for us, we also expect to provide the very best care for them that we physically and economically can. For their part,  our cows have taken good care of us, providing us with food on the table, an income, and the pleasure of meeting so many new friends with an interest in this historic breed.

We have a lot of different and exciting things on this website.  There is an extensive collection of cattle health related articles, most of them previously printed in the quarterly magazine of the American Highland Cattle Association, and written by Pat White, DVM, the "White" in LEA-White Farms.

We have a large herd, and offer some truly outstanding animals for sale.  We also have semen available from 7 outstanding Highland bulls from totally different bloodlines.

 We also offer for sale custom built hay feeders that are heavy duty and work for horned cattle

The photographs are all original and taken Pat, unless otherwise noted.

The "us" in LEA-White Farms is Larry E. Alber (thus the "LEA" ) and Patricia A. White. We have lived on our farm in Charlotte, Michigan, since 1977, with our first Highland cattle purchased in 1983.  We started out with 2 heifer calves, and it doesn't seem like we have looked back since. Larry's love has always been in farming, although not necessarily in raising stock. The addition of livestock to the farm was basically Pat's doing. We started first with a collection of horses that rarely got ridden, and decided to replace most of those with something that we considered a tad more practical.  Highland cattle were a natural addition.  They added beauty, practicality, and were so unusual that they attracted a great deal of attention.  These assets hold true today.

Our goal has always been to produce top quality brood cows that will go on to produce outstanding calves for their owners. With that in mind we have chosen our bulls with care, aiming to improve those traits that will contribute to the value of their daughters working in the herd.  We look at feet and legs, udder conformation, disposition and general appearance. Despite a desire to judge our cattle strictly on performance, the natural beauty of the Highland breed was something that attracted us to them in the first place.  As a result, we do place considerable value of the appearance of the animal.  There is no bovine that is more dramatic than an outstanding specimen of this particular breed.  This is a very important aspect of the breed's desirability and maintaining those characteristics that contribute to this beauty is an important part of our breeding program.

 Larry is the farm manager and does a superb job of putting up high quality forage in adequate amounts to feed our expanded cattle operation. He also is  very interested in conservation of natural resources and has overseen the development of several wetlands on our properties. Pat is the stockman and veterinarian, responsible for the herd health program, breeding choices and sales of breeding stock.  She is also a frequent contributor to The Bagpipe, the quarterly magazine of the American Highland Cattle Association.  She has written a number of veterinary articles that have been published by the American association, as well as in the Canadian Highland Cattle Society magazine, the Kyloe Cry.  Both Pat and Larry are active as members of the US, the Canadian and our local Midwest associations.  Both of us are involved in the day to day operations of the farm.  We have no full-time help, although we do employ occasional help for haying season, and when we participate in cattle shows.

We attend several shows with our cattle; particularly those in our general area.  We also have entered cattle in the National Western Stock Show in Denver every year since 1990. We do not have, however, a "show string" of cattle.  Any animals entered in any show are pulled from the herd with enough time to perform any necessary health requirements, but other than that, our show cows receive no special treatment.  They are not fed special for the show ring, but rather are an excellent representation of the cattle that are working in our breeding herd.  What you see is what you get, without a lot of fat covering up the flaws.  We have done well in the show ring, but it is the repeat sales of quality breeding stock that make us most proud.

Our cattle are maintained on pasture or forage produced and harvested on the farm.   The main cow herd receives only forage and minerals.  The weanling calves born in the spring receive token amounts of corn mixed with molasses over their first winter, and this is in quantities only enough to balance their diet. Our cattle are never given feed antibiotics, or any sort of hormone implants intended to increase growth.