BIGGAR, Sask. – Driving the alleyways of this feedlot, the lines of cattle heads poking out between the grey boards into the feed bunks hint at the size of the operation.
But it is not large by Alberta standards, says Doug Weekes of the 9,000-head feedlot he and his two brothers run in west-central Saskatchewan. Those finishing feedlots handle five times the number that the Weekes take in. The Saskatchewan lot does mainly custom backgrounding, taking calves in at 500 to 800 pounds and turning them back to the owners or trucking them to Alberta for slaughter a few months later.
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The brothers operate their lot on 30 quarters of light-soiled, dry land in the area where their English grandfather settled in the 1920s. Their father began the feedlot in the 1960s and still lives on the site.
While each can do all the jobs, they have tended to specialize – Randy does the office and computerized records, Owen is on the phone a lot to handle customers, and to buy and sell cattle, and Doug looks after the forage and cereal farming and works with the cow herd.
Labor involved
They hire 10 people to help check, feed, sort, weigh and load the cattle. Despite slow summers, the Weekes keep the staff year-round because they don’t want to lose their expertise.
Doug credits word of mouth as the best advertising for their feedlot, but people driving by on the highway can find it by the big white bull astride the feedlot sign.
The brothers pool all their business and seldom disagree on strategy, he said.
“Having three families makes it so we can get away. That’s our strength, the three of us sharing the capital and the machinery. By ourselves we’re three small farmers, but together … .”
The brothers recently invested in elk for velvet and breeding stock, a move that Doug wishes they’d done earlier when the females were selling for $2,000 each, rather than $20,000.
But out of all their business ventures, Doug likes his cattle best. They have a purebred herd of 100 Charolais – because of their performance and gain in the feedlot – and 100 Red Angus, noted as good mothers. Calving started in early January and 120 newborns and their mothers are in one of the pastures.
Closer to Doug’s house is the calving area. At one pen Doug stops and feeds a treat of oats to Big Red, the Angus grand champion at a Saskatoon show last fall. This year, the Weekes will take semen from him for their own herd and offers some for sale. But Big Red is not one of the 65 bulls the Weekes plan to sell at the end of March in Saskatoon.
The feedlot runs a herd health program with the University of Saskatchewan’s veterinary college. It helps keep the lot on top of the newest technology.
“It seems like we’re in a constant state of change following the trends in agriculture,” said Doug. “It’s just part of the business. If you don’t change, you’re in trouble.”
That includes heeding urban concerns about the environment. The Weekes spread manure from their lot on their land. Not only does it reduce their need to buy fertilizer, it also prevents soil erosion.
“As a feedlot we’ve gone through the permit process, built dams and followed the rules. An environmental plan and being humane to animals – it should be common sense.”
Necessary task
Doug said he and his brothers would like to stop injecting their animals with growth implants, but they would be at a disadvantage if they tried.
Someone has to take the economic risk and pay more for food produced organically, whether it be the consumer or society as a whole.
Doug and his wife Ann are active in 4-H, originally involved with their son and two daughters in small pets and craft activities, but are now into calf projects.
Ann’s influence in the family is evident in the artwork hanging on the walls of their home. Her detailed pencil sketches of people, barns and wildlife are well-crafted but she did not develop into a commercial artist because she said, “it would take too much time from the family.”
Her daughters appear to have their mother’s ability and each has won poster contests and have some work hanging in the home. But when the kids come home from school, they all have chores to do and animals to take care of whether it be 4-H calves, the cockatiel that only speaks for the girls or the stray cats huddled on the deck.
