We are daughters of the late C. T. "Pete" McClatchy, Jr. Pete, or Mr. Pete (a southern term of respect) as he was often called, was one of the best Hereford breeders in the state of Texas for over 50 years. Mr. Pete's cattle were highly sought after and people gladly paid a premium to get his bulls for their herd sires and his heifers to improve their own herds.

Our focus these days is to take the superior cattle he has bred and breed them for tenderness rather than range duty. We are using the great herd he has built to breed extra flavorful and tender beef cattle to grace the tables of others as it has graced our family's tables for decades.

As you can see from the pictures of the cattle on our website, Mr. Pete bred superior livestock and we have been carrying on with his cattle and breeding for tenderness the past six years and the transition is now almost complete. We had our cattle tested for tenderness genes are they were found to be abundant. Gerald Fry, the leading expert on beef tenderness, performed sonograms on our entire herd and said 99% of them were shown to be much more tender than average. Tenderness and taste are both affected by cattle handling practices and our cowboys have been trained to treat the cattle gently and roundup has become a quiet thing on our ranch, no more hootin' and hollerin' and running the cattle like in the old days. We still use cowboys on horses to help round up but generally just honk the horn and the cattle come on their own because being in the pens is not an unpleasant thing for them.

Trickham is our home and it’s the oldest community between Ft. Worth and El Paso, founded by John Chisum as a supply stop for his Western Cattle Trail in the mid-1800’s. The town saw its share of Indians and outlaws in the frontier days and grew up into a full sized town fast. Then came the railroad, but it took another route and the town has slowly diminished down to the remaining few families. Gone now are the schools, commercial buildings and most of the homes and the remaining church is Southern Baptist one one week, Methodist the next, Cumberland Presbyterian the third week and the fourth week, whichever preacher is available preaches. It really doesn’t matter much though, since the same people attend all the services. It’s in the Community Center that used to be the last school house (a two-roomer) next to the church where some of the greatest food in America is served after weddings and funerals. The locals all know that you have to get in line early if you want to get any of that McClatchy beef because it goes fast.

Trickham has become the kind of small community that you don’t hardly find anymore, where people still grow their own food and and cook and can the old-fashioned way. They freeze and dehydrate food, too, after all, this is the 21st century. Country cookin’ doesn’t get any better anywhere. Five generations of McClatchys working hard under harsh conditions helped tame the land for farming and ranching since 1892 and have added onto the family’s original 160 acres. In those early days John A. and Mattie McClatchy lived on the Brown/Coleman County line near Trickham and grubbed mesquite trees all day to clear the land for farming and at night after the children were in bed, burned the brush.

We hope you enjoy our family's heritage and our beef.
Jeanie McClatchy Dreinhofer
Merridee McClatchy