ARCOLA, Sask. – Satisfied customers create repeat sales for Blair Athol Polled Herefords in southeastern Saskatchewan.
“That’s probably been the key to our success because our cattle have worked for people. I think that’s why we’re doing better all the time, because the cattle work,” said Duncan Lees.
Duncan and his wife, Val, along with their sons, Jeff and Jarrett, keep about 150 purebred Herefords on 14 quarters of land in southeastern Saskatchewan.
Customers hail from Ontario to British Columbia and into the United States.
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“Most of our customers are repeat. We sell them one and then we end up selling them two, three, four, year after year,” said Duncan.
He identified the key ingredients needed to produce successful animals – having a good eye for cattle, being able to see faults and strong points and having enough experience or luck to mate them to breed for a good animal.
“We’ve never had the ultimate animal. There’s no such thing really, but you keep getting closer. The show ring sort of determines that. Then the secret is that they go on and breed well. And they aren’t just a show animal. They’ve got to get the job done down the road too.”
This year marks 100 years for Blair Athol in the registered Hereford cattle business, which was started by Duncan’s great-grandfather, Thomas Lees, and named for his Scottish birthplace.
In 1882, Thomas and two brothers each took up homesteads. Despite setbacks and moving off the farm during the Depression, generations of Lees had heifer calves and kept the breed going. In the 1960s, they replaced the horned cattle with polled Herefords. Jeff now lives in the house his great-great grandfather built in 1905.
Last fall’s Canadian Western Agribition in Regina marked a milestone for Blair Athol, which won its first premier breeder award. Duncan’s father, Tom, who died in 1974, was an early organizer of Agribition.
More winning ribbons followed in January at the National Western Livestock Show in Denver.
The responsibility for showing falls to Jeff and Jarrett, who do the majority of the work.
“Dad does a good job of deflecting the traffic from Jeff and I so we can get the work done that we need to get done and he can do the talking and the marketing of the cattle,” said Jarrett.
They have learned to take their cues from their clientele.
“They (young people) can talk until they’re blue in the face but nobody really pays any attention to them. I noticed when I got about 50, or white hair, all of a sudden I didn’t have to talk anymore. People came and asked me what I thought,” said Duncan.
Jeff agrees with his father.
“… when it comes to selling bulls, they don’t like to listen to kids and we’re just kids to most of those old cowboys, but Dad can sell them the same bull, tell them exactly the same thing and they think it’s just wonderful.”
Jarrett said experience counts.
“You might have a good eye when you’re young but I think it takes time and experience and trust to begin to sell cattle,” he said.
Jeff and Jarrett both completed degrees in animal science and agriculture in the United States by winning livestock judging scholarships. During that time, Jeff travelled to 31 states to judge livestock.
“Now we’re in a position where we can take our own cattle down there so we can market our own genetics to contacts made in years past,” said Jarrett.
Duncan said they will continue to make the farm more financially stable through the purebred cattle business, with support from Val’s off-farm teaching job and Jeff’s oilpatch work.
He said their land base is not big enough to allow both boys to be involved here without off-farm jobs.
“That’s the problem I see with agriculture. It looks to me that you have to be huge or you have to be small and elite with off-farm jobs, income,” he said.
