Born in Campbeltown, Scotland, the son of David McEachran and Jean Blackney, McEachran graduated from the Edinburgh Veterinary College in 1861 and received his license to practice from Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

McEachran was a staff member but he considered the admission standards and academic requirements to be inadequate.

[1] In 1867, Smith and McEachran again joined forces to publish the first veterinary textbook in Canada for farmers, The Canadian horse and his diseases.

The college then became the Faculty of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science of McGill University.

In the late 1880s he helped establish two large horse breeding ranches in Alberta and then provided management for others from his home in Montreal.