Location: Greenfield, Mo.
Owners: Asa and Kelbey Bowles
History: After working on the road as a welder for nine years, Asa Bowles decided it was time to come home.
“I was building fence part time,” he recalled. “Basically, in the winter time, we’d feed cows for half a day, then I would go build fence. I just happened to see some free-standing panels on Facebook and I thought that would work for rent ground. Since I’m a welder by trade, I started building a few; now we build a lot. It just kind of exploded on us and we have kept growing.”
The growth at Honey Creek since it began six years ago is evident as Asa and his wife Kelbey will be moving the business to its third shop in the coming weeks.
Products: Honey Creek Livestock Equipment manufactures livestock equipment, such as freestanding corral systems and feeding equipment, as well as other products that cater to the cattle producers in the Ozarks.
“We try to be a one-shop stop for anything corral or cattle related,” Asa explained. “We don’t just have panels; we have the entire corral. We also have bunk panels, bow gates and more. We are a manufacturing shop, but every year we look for more and more products that we can do retail sales on. In the new shop with more room, we’re going to get into automatic waters and net wrap. We are also a Ranch Hand and a Steelcraft dealer, so we will have replacement bumpers for trucks. We’re also planning to get into some concrete feed bunks and I’m looking at some cattle oilers. I want to be that all-inclusive ranch store.”
Honey Creek Livestock also offers chutes from RR Tuff Livestock in Texas.
“We have them at the economically-priced manual chute on up to some of the big, heavy hydraulic chutes; we have different styles of all of them,” Asa said. “There are so many variations to these chutes; you can add alleys to them, alleys and tubs, hydraulic lifts on the hydraulic chutes to make them extremely portable.”
Because they are a smaller company, Asa said Honey Creek Livestock Equipment can work with customers to find out exactly what they need to handle their livestock in a safe and efficient manner. They also offer predesigned packages.
With the heart of the business being welding and fabrication, Asa said he works to develop new products and has recently launched a squared cradled hay feeder.
Asa credits the success of Honey Creek to not only being a welder and fabricator, but a cattle producer.
“We don’t just sell this stuff, we use it,” Asa said. “We get hands-on experience with this equipment. We know what works and what works really well, and we can give our chute manufacturer feedback on what doesn’t work and what does.”
