About us - The Medeiros family

For David Medeiros, the commitment to producing quality, Angus cattle began a long time ago.

Back in the 1970s, when he was just 13, he decided to breed an unruly Charolais heifer - his 4H project - to an Angus bull.

The rest, as they say, was history.

Medeiros grew up competing in fairs and progress shows in the northern San Joaquin valley, and over time, his registered Angus herd began to grow.

When he headed off to Cal Poly, he met his lifelong friend, David Dal Porto, a student at Chico State, where they competed against each other in collegiate livestock judging.

After college, their black herds may have seemed a bit rebellious, with Rancho Casino and Dal Porto Livestock sticking out as only two of a handful that made Angus the breed of choice in the area.

But their minds had been made up, and they started building on those show herds of youth with a more functional, seedstock genetic focus.

"They both had a great customer base from private-treaty sales, but they both realized at about the same time that they needed to do business differently," says Carol Medeiros. "They needed to combine forces and create more value. That's when the sale started 20 years ago. That's also when the real similarities started to surface."

Today, the Medeiros family continues to produce quality Angus cattle and grow their successful Angus seedstock business - but the decision to partner up with the Dal Portos for their annual bull sale has proven to be the catalyst for growing their enterprises.

"It's never one or the other, it's a team thing," Jeanene Dal Porto says. "Bringing the two operations together gives buyers options, but those options are never your bull or my bull. It's all together and about what the customer needs his bull to be."

From the beginning, Medeiros knew his customers needed bulls that worked in their environment. He and David Dal Porto saw a common opportunity in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which led to their eventual collaboration: Commercial cattlemen were looking to the Angus breed for balance and calving ease in their replacement heifers.

We believe you should never have to pull a calf," Medeiros says. "Because we stack generations for those traits, they are predictable and dependable."

Medeiros says that fertility is their No. 1 culling consideration. Then, cows from their bulls must be able to calve unassisted and excel in udder quality, mothering ability and disposition.

A bull has to have two or three generations of low or moderate birth weight to call him a heifer bull for their customers, and those traits must be passed along to the maternal end of the herd, as well. Bulls are only half the equation; and they're used to produce great replacement heifers that will stack maternal traits on both sides.

"We're committed to raising the highest-quality Angus cattle in the business," says Medeiros. "Our business is a lifelong dream, and we want to deliver to our customers trouble-free cattle that work from conception to consumption."