After coming to the Calgary Bull Sale for decades, the Nixdorff family finally captured the top prize.
Nels and Terri Nixdorff were awarded grand champion bull for a two-year-old Horned Hereford and received $12,500 from Misty Valley Farms of Maidstone, Sask.
All five of their entries placed second or better in their classes so it was an affirmation of a longtime program where Nels’ father, Scott, brother and cousins were also showing and selling Herefords at the 108-year-old sale March 6.
“This bull sale made our name through the ’90s,” said Nels, who got his wife, Terri, and three boys, Hal, Adam and Coleman, out of bed at 4 a.m. to prepare for sale day.
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“We have been here almost 30 years and we have never had grand champion,” said Nels of his home-raised bull.
“He’s the bull that stuck out in the pen of bulls,” he said.
Overall, his bulls averaged about $7,000 so it was a rewarding payday at a time when cattle markets are down. He sees soft markets as a good time to sell Hereford bulls when feed prices are through the roof and a dry spring is predicted.
“Hereford cattle are easy keeping in hard times. They make do with less,” he said.
The family raises about 200 cows on their Airdrie, Alta., mixed farm. However, the boys want to farm so they are looking to expand and have had to get leases farther north at Buck Lake and Rocky Mountain House. Their land is worth more for its real estate value than farm value, which makes expansion nearly unachievable.
They also grain farm because diversification is another way to keep the farm strong. Besides their own production sale they will be selling at the Medicine Hat bull sale March 18-19.
These events are a big deal for the entire family with the teenaged boys pitching in for chores and showing cattle through junior programs like 4-H.
“Their whole living is around cattle. Everything that I have ever done that is interesting in my life is because of the cattle,” Nels said.
That includes trips throughout the United States, Asia and most recently a working tour of Russia where he joined the marketing company Alta Exports on a trade mission promoting Canadian genetics. Before BSE closed down export opportunities, the Nixdorff family exported cattle and semen throughout Europe from a home-raised bull named Generator.
“His sons went all over the world,” said Nels.
