Don and Wanda Wilkie took a chance and entered the Calgary Bull Sale for the first time ever and came away with one of the top sellers.
Their 16-month-old full French polled Charolais bull brought them $20,500 from an Alberta syndicate of buyers led by Tyler Bullock, Elizabeth McAttie and Roy Mulkay.
Wilkie usually sells his bulls off the farm at Big Valley in central Alberta, but after selling some heifers at a sale last fall he decided to try his luck with a single bull at the Calgary sale March 2-4.
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“We hoped to get $5,000 for him,” said Wilkie in an interview.
“It turned out pretty good.”
Born in October 2003, the bull was a mating involving semen from France and embryos from a full French cow in Canada. There are three remaining full brothers of the bull on the farm and Wilkie is optimistic the good fortune will continue.
Also at the Charolais sale, the grand champion entered by John Rudiger of Calgary fetched $12,200, going to a group of buyers called the JR CW Channing 310N syndicate. The reserve champion from Harvie Ranching at Olds, Alta., sold for $3,499 to Way-Alta Livestock of Calgary.
Overall, the 105th annual sale saw 282 bulls sell from three breeds for a total of $1,016,150.
The high seller came from Grant and Annette Hirsche of High River, Alta., who sold a two-year-old Hereford for $51,000 to Upstream Ranch of Taylor, Nebraska.
The grand champion Hereford was awarded to Gordon Henderson’s Little Poplar Grove Herefords at Forestburg, Alta. The bull sold for $12,000 to MJT Herefords at Edgerton, Alta.
The reserve grand champion entered by Kallal Herefords of Tofield, Alta., fetched $12,500 from Dallas Farms at Bowden, Alta.
It was a rewarding week for Lawrence Kallal and his partners Doug and Judy Finseth. All three entries either placed first in class, with one being named reserve champion and another junior calf champion.
Ironically, their reserve champion almost didn’t make it.
The sire was shown at Farmfair in Edmonton and was turned out with a group of bred heifers to get in shape for the spring breeding season. Unknown to them, one of the heifers was not pregnant and it conceived with this bull to create a champion. The heifer would have been culled if not for a vet check that revealed a fall pregnancy.
Kallal Herefords and the Finseths have been working together for seven years selling high quality bulls in North America, until the borders closed due to BSE nearly two years ago.
Since the mid-1970s until 2003, the partners have sold a 1,200 bulls to IX Ranch in Montana.
They were forced to switch their marketing plans.
“We never missed a beat,” said Doug Finseth.
They got busy and found other markets and opened up opportunities in British Columbia, where commercial ranchers were looking for good solid bulls.
“We knew we had a market and we had to work with these guys,” he said.
Nearly all the customers are repeat buyers who take about 40-50 bulls per year off the ranch. Calgary is the only consignment sale they support.
The Angus show and sale turned out to be a family affair.
The grand and reserve champions went to Belvin Angus owned by Gavin and Mabel Hamilton of Innisfail, Alta. This is the third consecutive year the Hamiltons won the champion banner. Overall, they have won grand champion at Calgary 10 times.
“We do our homework and we bring our best to Calgary,” said Mabel Hamilton.
This year’s grand champion was sired by the 2004 Calgary champion and the reserve champion owned by son Colton came out of his 2003 Calgary Stampede grand champion cow.
Their champion bull went to Remitall Cattle Co. of Olds, Alta., for $12,000. Carl Peterson of Chinook, Alta., bought the reserve for $4,000.
While numbers were down and some bulls did not sell, the tradition of the Calgary Bull Sale continues, said Jim Sutton. He is a Hereford breeder and president of the Alberta Cattle Breeders Association, which stages the longest running consignment sale in North America.
Changes are introduced nearly every year to keep the offering up to date and hold buyer interest.
Last year the sale went on-line and bidders from around the world could join via the internet in real time. This year there were one million hits and observers from 14 countries on the TEAM auction connection run through the Calgary Public Stockyards.
Next year, an ultrasound exam measuring backfat will be introduced to further test bulls for soundness and merit.
Nevertheless, the sale competes with private events and smaller sales across the Prairies. For the cattle breeders association however, this is part of the province’s heritage and they must continue to offer the best.
“As long we keep the quality up, we’ll survive,” Sutton said.
