Lorne Miller is a bison judge who stands behind his decisions.
When he and fellow judge Mike Edgar were judging the 2000 heifer class at the Wild Rose Classic Bison Show and Sale in Camrose, Alta., they couldn’t agree on the first place calf.
Miller liked Number 18, a rare wood bison from the Beaver Creek Wood Bison Ranch in Fort McMurray, Alta., owned by oil-company Syncrude Canada and the Fort McKay First Nation.
But Edgar thought it looked too masculine and didn’t agree that it should be placed first in the bison class. It ended up in fourth place.
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But Miller still liked the the 10-month old calf at sale time and paid $10,250 for it, the highest price for a female at the sale.
“I liked her,” Miller said after the sale. “I think she had far more positive attributes than negative. I really liked her length. She had good width and she was heaviest in the class.”
Edgar isn’t offended. He thinks it’s a good sign that Miller is willing to buy the animal he thinks is best.
Few wood bison heifers come up for sale, said Miller, who likes to cross them with plains bison in his 250-cow herd at Binscarth, Man.
“The crosses are faster growing and larger animals,” he said.”We have a pretty good herd of buffalo. We go to lots of shows and sales and always try to improve our breeding stock.”
The average sale price of the 99 animals at the Camrose sale was a little more than $2,100.
The lowest price paid for a 2000 heifer calf was $850.
The 2000 male prices ranged from $825 to $4,100 with an average of $1,681.
The highest paid for a 1999 female was $4,000, while the lowest price was $1,500, with an average of $2,600. The highest price for a 1999 male was $15,000, with the lowest at $1,050 and an average of $3,308.
Denis Michaud of Bonnyville, Alta., bought the highest-priced 1999 born bull from Double R Bison of Big River, Sask.
For the past three years, the Saskatchewan ranch has had the high-selling bison at the Camrose sale.
In 1999 it sold a bull for $53,000. In 2000 it sold a bull for $17,000 and this year its bull sold for $15,000.
“He was the nicest one to me,” Michaud said.
“He was a nice bull. He wasn’t too fat and besides, I needed one more bull.”
By paying $15,000 for a breeding bull, Miller is confident the low prices will not last forever.
“We had a little slump for a while, but that slump’s going to go away.”
Norm Moore of Moore’s Auction said bison prices are the lowest they’ve been in 14 years.
He said the price freefall stopped in November and seems to have stabilized.
More new producers are buying bison.
“We feel good now telling someone about getting into bison,” Moore said.
His company sells about 300 head at its weekly bison sale at Alder Flats, Alta.
“There are new people coming in the industry because prices are reasonable.”
Pauline Long-Wright, of Heartland Livestock Services, said there were “lots of new buyers” at the Camrose sale, a good sign for the industry.
