From the Field

Wow what a great spring for the Charolais breed and what will the future look like. We saw some new buyers in the market and some that have tried Charolais before expand the numbers they are using. When you have the order buyers and feedlot operators using more Charolais bulls on their own cows, with many of them being blacks, you know the producers they buy calves from are going to get the message of what they should be using. JGL Livestock, which is one of the premier order buying firms in North America, bought over 40 Charolais bulls this spring to put on a portion of their many thousand cows. Kirk Sinclair, owner of Prairie Livestock at Moosomin, Saskatchewan, added another 40 Charolais bulls to his bull battery to go on mainly black cows. Highway 21 Feeders out of Alberta increased their Charolais bulls in their 250 head bull battery and there were more stories of producers adding Charolais bulls to their black cows.

We have to resell the idea of crossbreeding and the advantages of it. I asked one cattleman who was switching and his main goal was to increase weaning weights. We know the Charolais bull will calve and the hybrid vigor should look after the rest. Another producer who has predominately straight bred Simmental was impressed with the calving ease and vigor at birth of his Charcross calves. There are so many advantages to crossbreeding that we need to tell.

It was an interesting time this spring bull sale run. There were some incredible positives in the Charolais market and a few softer sales that are hard to explain. The sales started off strong and for the most part were that way, although the later sales in the season which historically see a strengthening in prices saw some pressures. I had one breeder from Ontario email me this question and have printed my response, which I think sums up the last half of the bull sales.

What is your sense for the sales being softer this year, when people are getting more for their stockers than they have for a long time?

This spring the stocker market was dropping the further we went along as the high cost of feed kept the feedlots losing money. The fat cattle market should be better than it is but the US economy has put a cap on that as well. There is also the fear of the unknown with the new proposed mCOOL changes the US have put forward. This doesn’t look positive for Canadian fat cattle going to be harvested across the line.

I know out here, guys were just getting grumpy with the long, hard winter and attitude is very important come sale day. Like in many areas, the feed stacks were going down and the price was going up and guys were starting to count pennies to buy hay.

I also think that last year we sold a lot of bulls and there are a lot of young bulls in the industry and fewer cows. Not that it affected Charolais, but there are less commercial heifers being bred this spring so not as many heifer bulls were sold.

I am writing this on April 30th in Regina and woke up this morning with a bit of a blizzard with high winds and 3 to 4 inches of snow. The whole spring has been challenging for everyone. There were not many sale days across the country that didn’t have some weather issues, be it snow, freezing rain, bad roads or below normal frigid temperatures, and I think this contributed to some sales that weren’t quite as good as anticipated. I think many commercial producers hadn’t realized it was spring and they needed to buy bulls. Many have not semen tested yet so there will be some market still out there between now and grass time. Many sales offered increased numbers after last year’s strong sale but probably holding the numbers steady would have been more in tune with the market, as evidenced at the end of the season.

There will be some higher calf losses this spring as well, as many producers weren’t equipped to handle the colder than normal weather when they started calving. Some have joked that there will be two sorts this fall selling calves –with and without ears.

We would like to welcome the new General Manager of the Canadian Charolais Association, Kelly Carson, who introduces himself in this issue, and thank the board of directors and office staff who have put in extra time in the last six months keeping things caught up. It is always interesting when fresh eyes come into an organization and relook at how and why we do things.

There are a number of provincial association events taking place this summer and I would encourage everyone to attend as many within and outside their province as possible. For example the Saskatchewan Association is celebrating 50 years in conjunction with the CCA AGM. Manitoba is having a picnic and cattle display the end of June in Miami and of course Ontario is hosting the CCYA Conference and Show in Shelburne.

See you down the Charolais trail.

Until next time,

Helge

Helge By