DENTON, NC – “When you start with no knowledge, it’s an uphill climb,” said Mark Wilburn, reflecting on his journey as a cattleman.

In 2007, as a 21-year-old with no farming experience, he purchased 30 acres with the intent to raise cattle.

A few months later, he bought some commercial cows. It was then he realized he had purchased cropland – with no fencing and no water.

“I was new,” Wilburn recalled. “I knew absolutely nothing.”

That first weekend he kept the cows at a relative’s place while he fenced in five acres of his land. For a few months he hauled water twice a day before having a well dug.

“There’s been some good, there’s been some bad, and there’s been some ugly,” he admitted.

Wilburn has advanced his operation, Uwharrie Ridge Farms (URF), a long way from that memorable beginning. In 2010 he bought his first Registered Angus. In 2012 he sold his first registered bull. In 2017 he sold his first bull to a stud service (URF Homegrown 1619 to ABS). In total he has sold four bulls to stud services.

One of his foundation cows – Yon Sarah Y79 – produced 126 offspring while greatly impacting the quality and character of Wilburn’s herd.

Today URF, a partnership between Mark and his wife Jessica, has 200 cows. The Wilburns’ young daughter Mereighan participates in the farm as well.

URF’s herd is 80% Angus and the remainder Charolais. Wilburn uses ET on 50% of the herd’s cows, with the balance being bred AI with natural service backup. Counting hay fields, pasture and cropland, the farm now encompasses about 1,000 acres of land in southern Randolph County.

The first Saturday of December URF has an on-farm production sale, selling about 50 bulls as well as females. This year they are selling bred females for the first time.

The herd is fall calving, which means the final months of the year – with calving, breeding and the sale – are hectic. “Jessica calls it managed chaos,” Wilburn said.

Wilburn sells primarily to buyers from North Carolina and surrounding states, but he has sold animals as far away as the Mountain West.

He also permits certain past customers to consign replacement heifers at the sale, with the provision those females represent URF genetics.

“Our goal is balanced trait selection,” Wilburn said. “We may not be the best in any one area but we try to keep things in balance – good maternal traits, good growth and good carcass quality.”

The buyers of his Charolais bulls are primarily commercial Angus producers who want Charolais genetics for hybrid vigor.

Out of college, Wilburn worked as a bank’s loan officer, then at Farm Credit. From there he took a job at ABS. Today he has an off-farm job with Select Sires, providing technical expertise for beef producers in the eastern half of the country, from Kansas to the Atlantic.

Wilburn built his herd with animals from Blue Q Ranch and Springfield Angus (both now dispersed) in North Carolina, Sitz Angus in Montana and Mill Brae Ranch in Kansas. Yon Family Farms of Ridge Spring, SC, has also been an important influence. Charolais came to the ranch five years ago from the Virginia Tech herd.

In addition to learning how to raise cattle, Wilburn has learned how to raise crops. He started by growing small grains for baleage. He likes growing a blend of 75% black oats and 25% Marshall ryegrass.

Recently, he’s also begun growing beans and corn, some 200 acres, to use as feed for his herd. The beans are roasted offsite then milled on the farm. About 70% of the corn is harvested as silage, the rest as grain. He is growing the dual-purpose white midrib variety ‘Enogen.’ “It’s got good height, good leaf and good stalk density,” he said.

“I’ve had some young guys ask us how we did it,” Wilburn recalled. “I’m not sure how.

“Because the farm didn’t come from my family, there are no expectations,” he continued. “The only thing I’ve got to lose is what I’ve worked for. If I lost it all, I would be back with what I started with – nothing.”

He wants to keep growing his operation, to 500 cows and 1,000 acres of cropland.

“We have had a lot of sleepless nights and there’s been a lot of hard work – and it’s still that,” he reflected. “There’s been times I went to bed thinking ‘Lord, how am I going to pay that bill?’ Inevitably something unexpected will happen and we keep going.

“I’m not going to lie – it’s not been easy. Learning about animal husbandry, farming, business. Without faith and without the Good Lord’s blessings, we wouldn’t be here.”

As stated in Corinthians 3:6, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”