REGINA – After a one year hiatus, bison appeared in the show and sale lineup at the Nov. 22-27 Canadian Western Agribition.
Tough economic times have plagued the industry for three years. First there were meat processing backlogs, then there was downward pressure on all game-farmed animals due in part to unrelated chronic wasting disease in cervids. Finally there was the effect from the BSE crisis in cattle and its resulting closure of the American border.
In Regina last week, 28 bison entered the show and 30 were sold at auction during the Canadian National Bison Sale, bringing an average $1,568.
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The $47,050 sale gross compared poorly to Agribition’s 2001 sale that saw 116 animals sell for $252,875, averaging $2,179 or even the weaker 2002 sale that brought in $103,875, or $1,760 per head.
This year, the top selling Silver Creek Bison Ranch bull from the Miller family of Binscarth, Man., brought $10,750 from a Wyoming buyer, Rex Snyder of Lyman.
John Chorney of Big Sky Bison at Clair, Sask., said while that single price was strong, many of the “really fantastic animals on offer went cheap.
“But these prices are better than it’s been for a while on the breeding stock side,” he said.
Chorney sold a two-year-old bull for $1,100, much less than what he would have received when it was born.
“We can only deal in today though,” he said.
He sold bred heifers for $450 each.
“I’d have made more by feeding them and selling the meat,” he said.
A stronger meat market, in part due to lower priced animals and greater availability due to softened breeding stock inventories, is one of the reasons the bison sale is back.
Rex Snyder raises bison north and south of the border. Two years ago at the Agribition sale he paid 10 times as much for bred female Wood cross animals than was paid in Regina last week.
He feels the business is making adjustments necessary to grow into a successful meat industry.
“The American market is starting to really come together again and the BSE thing is all that is keeping Canada down a bit. But they’re starting to get those sales together and product is moving and people are becoming more confident about the industry,” he said.
Chorney has been successfully selling his animals into the meat market for reasonable prices with his animals being federally slaughtered outside of Saskatchewan.
“What we need now is to get even a small federal plant in Saskatchewan and we’d be off to the races. The border opening would just be icing on the cake,” he said.
Snyder said he and his American colleagues figure it will be another five months before that happens. Even then it probably won’t include much breeding stock because many bulls will be older than 30 months.
