The truth hurts by Roy Rutledge
June, 2010
Every year we see more and more Alberta people either buying land in Saskatchewan or moving their cattle here to be pastured or fed. A sign of the times I guess as land becomes so expensive in Alberta. Some like to keep one leg in Alberta though because the Alberta government seems to have many more social programs for cattle than Saskatchewan does. Not only do they have more but they are usually far more lucrative too. Here in Saskatchewan we pretty much have to depend on skill.
One odd thing that we have noticed over the years though is the mindset of many of the immigrants when it comes to marketing these cattle. For some reason, some mistakenly believe that these cattle should go back to Alberta to be sold. In fact, many Saskatchewan people also mistakenly believe that most of the cattle go to Alberta to be fed too. Not so. My son Ryan and I run a couple of auction markets in southern Saskatchewan. The buyers at these markets send piles of cattle east to Ontario and Quebec. We test and brand thousands of cattle to go south, mainly Nebraska but Colorado and other states too.
Sure Alberta is a significant factor but we in Saskatchewan do have the freight advantage to eastern Canada and Nebraska. Why would anyone feel more comfortable to haul cattle back to Alberta to sell when they have cattle that fit the eastern orders? One reason is loyalty to the auction market that they grew up with in Alberta. That is great and that is where you should sell the cattle you have in Alberta but when in Rome you should do as the Romans do.
We run into situations where an Alberta rancher has his cattle in this province because he is short of grass at home. Yet, he feels compelled to haul his grasser yearlings back to his local auction market. Well if you are short of grass it is very likely your whole area is short of grass. You came here because there is grass so why wouldn't it make sense to sell your cattle where the grass is?
We also rep cattle for one of the major internet auctions (DLMS). Ryan and Boots (Rene Boutin) do most of it. Ryan, he is far more computer literate than I am. (Surprise, surprise.) He spent two or three years at DeVry institute learning to be an electronic engineer. After a couple of years doing that stuff, he decided that he would rather ranch and sort cattle at the auction market. Who am I to second guess that decision?
Both Ryan and Boots have twenty years of auction market experience each sorting cattle and grading cattle at presorted sales. They know their cattle. We are all constantly surprised at how many cattle from our area that sell over the internet go to Nebraska, Ontario or Quebec or sometimes even Manitoba. We expect most of them to stay in Saskatchewan, of course.
At the auction markets we do a lot of "presorted sales". More auction markets in Alberta are doing this now too, finally, but most don't. We didn't invent the presorted sales but I am the one who really got them up and running on a big scale in the late 1980's. I believe we were the first to have 3000 head presorted sales in the province. I know we were the first to have 4000 head sales, the first to have 5000 head sales and the only ones to hold 6000 head sales. The first time we had 4000 head listed, the owners of 900 head of those cattle backed out and didn't show up because they thought that we would never be able to sell 4000 in one day. (Non-believers.) Last fall cattle numbers were down everywhere. When we had only 4000 at a sale, some consignors were disappointed because we had such a small sale. My, how times change!
My boys were just kids when we started. They had to work in the penning alleys after school and on weekends. They didn't necessarily relish the idea at the time when most of their friends didn't have to work as kids. Yes, I know it was child labour, but it made productive men out of them. The rules have changed now and we can not hire anyone under sixteen. We used to hire some darned good kids.
Our youngest son, Rocky, really hated it. He kept saying that he wasn't learning anything. When he grew up he went to work in the oil field. He shot up to the top of his game in about five years. He supervises crews all over the world. One day while he was working his way up he phoned me and was grumbling about how hard it was to get his crews mobile at 1 A.M. or 3 A.M. as needed. I had to remind him "Yes, Rocky, I know the problem but you have to remember that those guys did not have auction market training like you did." Yes, I got in my little dig but he knew it was true. We at auction markets always have to work until the job is done whether we are tired or not.
Back to presorted sales, this is old hat to us but many of our new Alberta immigrants are not familiar with them and are quite nervous about having their cattle graded in with other cattle when sold. If the cattle are sorted right, there is no need to be nervous. Sure, you have good cattle but so do other people. If they can all be grouped into liner load lots, there is always a premium. Some people have enough cattle to make up loads of just their own cattle. It works great but usually it takes close to two hundred head of steers or heifers to be able to select one liner load of real uniform calves. (If you want top dollar they have to be uniform.) What about the rest of the calves which are too big or too small to fit into that load? They get sorted into graded loads of cattle of the same quality and weight. It is a win-win for everybody. The buyers like it too because they can plan their loads. If they buy liner load lots they don't have to worry about whether they can fill their loads or not. They can still put together some loads with the smaller groups too.
The secret to success with presorted sales is all in the grading. Even the plain cattle and we all have some of those no matter how hard we try, sell better if they are all in one uniform group. Us short fat guys don't look so bad if there are no tall slim guys around, even if it isn't closing time. It really gets more money out of the cattle. I am not saying that grading cattle is an exact science or that those of us who grade are always perfect. The last guy that was on this earth who was perfect got nailed to a cross. I like to make the odd mistake so that that does happen to me. |
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