You know you're a red neck when you take a day off your nice clean town job, and head off to the cattle auction with your husband. Glen has been planning on expanding his herd this fall and there was a large sale of bred cows over at Virden, Manitoba on Friday - perfect for looking at what was out there, and checking out what prices cattle are going for at the same time.
One lot of cows to be sold were those of a farmer we know from west of here. Glen was really interested in his animals as they are large and in prime condition, but quite a few other buyers felt the same way. The seller of these cows did really well - the younger animals went for well over the thousand dollars - a little out of the range of what we planned to spend. We did buy some of his older animals because Glen wanted to get some of their size into his herd, but most of what we took home were from another herd dispersal - the cows weren't in the best condition, but we have a good shelter set up and lots of feed so they'll do fine through the winter.
We have been a billet family for Katimavik for the past two weeks and our billet, Mike, came with us to see what an auction was all about. I think by the end of the day he had had enough, but he said he did learn lots. First of all - how does that auctioneer talk that fast? And, secondly, how does anyone understand him? I tried to explain what we were looking for in the animals we bought - the health (smoothness and shine) of her coat, her temperment (was she docile or out to kill the ringmaster?), was she limping, blind, have any deformities, and was her udder in good shape to feed a calf? I think, by the end of the afternoon, Mike was catching on.
What he mentioned on the way home, though, was his amazement at how much money changed hands that day. With all the cattle there were for sale, and the average price paid, the receipts at the end of the day probably added up to a half million dollars.
Glen has been noticing that there are a lot of cattle for sale this fall. There are all kinds of reasons - around here, we're in an oil boom at the moment. It is just outrageous what oil companies are paying people to work on drilling and service rigs. You can't make that kind of money farming, and it's hard to keep up with cattle chores when you're working shift work, so the cows are sold off. Give it a few years - oil feild work will go bust, and they'll be looking to start up a new herd again.
But, on a larger scale, cattle are being sold off because they are the only things that are worth anything at the moment. Farmers have bankers and lenders breathing down their backs looking for payments and the grain they grew (using fuel and fertilizer whose prices are out of control) is worth next to nothing. It is a tough situation to be in; you only have one thing making you money and you have to sell it to pay your bills. Glen and I went through a very bad time, finacially, some years ago so I empathize when people talk about the tough straits they're in this year. Maybe they'll be lucky and Ottawa will be handing out money for votes in the west. At least then there would be at least one good thing about an election that nobody wanted yet.
We had planned to buy about twenty more cows but the ones we really wanted went too high. We brought a dozen home and they seem to have joined the herd without difficulty. You never know with herd animals - there always has to be a boss cow. You can have a bit of a turf war if one of the new girls wants to take over that position on someone who has been already running the show for a while. From what I could see the night they came home, they were just glad to have a fresh bale and lots of room to lay down. I think that a trip to the auction barn is a preety stressful time for a cow.
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