Between kids’ hockey, 4-H and full-time jobs, Mike and Phyllis Verbeek still have time to raise champion level Red Angus cattle at their Beiseker, Alta., ranch.
Winning the reserve grand champion Angus at the Calgary Bull Sale was a pleasant surprise but considering the bull’s pedigree, it was not unpredictable.
“I thought we had a good shot but I didn’t expect to win,” said Mike Verbeek, who returned to the sale after a five year absence.
They generally sell their bulls off the farm but after such a good performance at Calgary, they’ll probably be back now that the three teenaged children are eager to help.
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The bull was out of a line of 4-H heifers the Verbeek children, Brittney, Chelsey and Scott, raised and showed to grand championship slots at Calgary’s 4-H On Parade event in June.
The family herd started when Phyllis’s father gave them a single cow as a wedding present and they built up from there.
Their champion yearling went to David Flundra, owner of Cattle Creek Ranching of Medicine Hat, Alta., and White Lake Colony of Nobleford, Alta., for $11,000, making it the top Angus at the March 6 sale.
Flundra runs a large Red Angus purebred and commercial operation as well as his own private bull sale every April.
He is always looking for new bloodlines so when he saw the champion bull’s pedigree and statistics in the sale catalogue, he decided it was worth a second look.
He liked the thickness and depth of the young animal and decided it had a future with his cow herd, which calves out in June.
“EPDs (expected progeny differences) are a tool. Nothing beats coming out and looking at it,” Flundra said.
He is interested in value adding and diversification, which includes a private beef marketing business. Animals that are not good enough to be registered as purebred are selected for the beef program, in which he markets a natural-raised AAA product.
“You have to be creative. You can’t do things the same way anymore,” said Flundra.
