Livestock Management
Success in the Canadian Western Agribition show ring translated into dollars for goat breeder Kerry O’Donnell. The Calder, Sask., producer of Boer goats showed the grand champion purebred buck and doe, as well as the best percentage doe. The buck kid went on to top the sale, selling for $1,000 to Guenette Bautz of Middle […] Read more
Livestock Management
Goat sales steady; demand to rise
Show sees quality cattle, high spirits
REGINA – Ted Serhienko exemplifies good humour at Canadian Western Agribition. With his cigarette hidden between curled fingers, there is always time to share a joke with everyone as he makes his rounds through the Agribition barns. The Saskatoon-based owner of T Bar C Cattle Co. manages purebred sales across Canada. He said the most […] Read more
Commercial show gets thumbs up
REGINA – Stephen and Kristin Wielgosz’s Charolais bull program received a gold star of approval when they decided to show in the commercial barn rather than the purebred events at Canadian Western Agribition. The result was winning the supreme champion pen of bulls among the five breeds on display. Their three January 2007 bulls were […] Read more
Simmental buyers like tradition
REGINA – The Robb brothers have had a good fall with high prices and praise when they enter the show ring, but on the farm at Maidstone, Sask., they get back to the business of providing good bulls to commercial beef producers. The family has been in the Simmental business since the 1970s when Gary […] Read more
U.S. steers do well at Agribition
Tony Heins came close to tears as he described his first sale at Canadian Western Agribition. The rancher from Wing, North Dakota, had been to the annual show before but this year marked the first time he brought his own cattle. All three of his Rocking H Livestock steers took first in their classes, and […] Read more
Charolais set for comeback
REGINA – It’s time for cattle producers to start using white bulls again, says the president of the Canadian Charolais Association. “It is time to own more cows and it is time for new breeders,” said Cameron Sparrow, adding that the commercial beef industry needs more Charolais-sired calves to improve rates of gain because packers […] Read more
Australian cattle producers test unique Canadian breed
REGINA – This time next year there will be Speckle Park calves on the ground in Australia. After a sales team bought two bulls at Canadian Western Agribition in 2006, semen and embryos were collected to introduce the distinct breed Down Under. At this year’s Agribition, the Speckle Park Australia Partners Ltd. sold back the […] Read more
Superbug found in Ont. pigs, farmers
The European strain of a methicillin-resistant superbug has been discovered in Ontario pigs and pig farmers, according to an associate professor at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College. Dr. Scott Weese, a pathobiologist who worked on the study recently published in the journal Veterinary Microbiology, said methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aurea, commonly known as MRSA, causes […] Read more
Vaccination program pays to help control diseases
Swine producers will receive financial help to launch a new vaccination program aimed at lowering hog death rates. Farmers will be reimbursed up to 50 percent for diagnostic testing and vaccination of hogs exposed to porcine circovirus associated diseases (PCVAD2) as part of a $25 million Circovirus Inoculation Program. John Harding, associate professor of swine […] Read more
Controversy in the air at Farmfair
EDMONTON – Tina Wagers couldn’t believe her eyes. On the day of the Angus sale at Farmfair International she watched her two-year-old Charolais cow slowly turn black. Aerosol spray paint used by Angus breeders to darken and shine their cattle drifted across the barns like a fog. “We watched them turn from white to grey. […] Read more
