A letter from our founder, Bill Watters:

From Agricultural Beginnings

As a child, we would drive from Georgia to Arkansas to visit my father's mother and father.  My grandfather was working in the mining business daily, but just behind his farm was a herd of cattle.  Every single trip, I was always infatuated with these cattle, and since that day I have always wanted to manage a herd of my own.  

I was raised in a family of five boys, and I was the one driven to be in agriculture.  It was a passion from the beginning.  It began with horses.  I owned horses in high school that I would ride daily.  In college, I had to part ways with the horses, but began rodeoing bareback broncos.  

In my last quarter of college at the University of Georgia, I was lucky enough to find a wife that grew up in the dairy farming business.  Judy's family was one of the top dairy producers in the state of Georgia, and had expanded their farm dramatically.  Judy's passion for farming grew from an early age.  

Striving Towards an Early Dream

My dream was to find an old house in the country and build a cattle farm.  We searched and searched for the perfect farm, and ultimately we found the perfect home on six and a half acres.  The home was built in 1847 along a pristine section of the Etowah River near Rome, Georgia.  At the same time, a prince from Saudi Arabia purchased all the land surrounding the home, putting an end to our dream of building a beef cattle farm.  In due time, we were able to acquire land from the prince and expand into what we now call Oakdale Farms.  

Cattle Beginnings

We began in commercial cattle in 1993, and began to elevate our herd in 2012 by changing our herd to high-genetic, registered Black Angus cattle.  We made this move because we were tired of producing calves for the commodity market.  We instead chose to produce cattle that were scientifically proven higher-quality cattle.  By doing that, we believed that we could breed a better, good-headed, more balanced cow.  These will be sold by private treaty and eventually will be sold via hosted sales at Oakdale Farms.  

Building for the Future

We started this transition by selling what we called our "back herd".  We sold cows, calves, and bulls.  We were lucky enough to have been to a sale at Deer Valley Farms and met JP.  We purchased 28 bred heifers and embryos for our front herd.  This was the beginning of a new age for Oakdale Farms.  Since that day, we have been improving our genetics from highly-curated farms to help boost our own herds genetics and ultimately give us better donor cattle that lift our herd.  We are now to a point of reaching our carrying capacity in cow stock.  We sell bulls and raise heifers.  We will begin selling our females in 2019 and establishing ourselves as one of the best Black Angus Cattle Farms.  Thank you for following us as we continue to grow into the future of Black Angus Cattle.

Welcome to Oakdale Farms.

Come see us.

Bill Watters

Co-Owner