Hard times on the ranch have forced a Saskatoon cattle producer to find a unique market for his animals – Prince Edward Island.
With feed in short supply for his 50 Gelb-vieh cows and prices dropping because of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis, Garry Boe found himself in a dilemma.
“It felt like a rock and hard place scenario. We were going to land on one of them.”
He started looking for opportunities to pare down his herd without “getting skinned too badly,” and while checking the classified advertisements on his breed association’s website, he found an ad placed by a Prince Edward Island farmer looking to establish that province’s first purebred Gelbvieh cattle herd.
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Boe e-mailed Ron Whalen of O’Faelan Farms in Avondale, P.E.I., and struck a deal to move his red cattle to the land of red soil and red braids.
“We have communicated almost exclusively by e-mail,” Boe said. “This Whalen fellow works nights, so we’ve exchanged most of the information on the internet.”
As a result of the deal they struck, 18 bred cows and 19 bred heifer calves are on their way east. Boe said the price wasn’t “as good as it would have been two years ago, but it wasn’t too bad. Hey, this ain’t two years ago, now is it? I think a lot of us have to remember that marketplace is gone because of BSE, at least for now. This is what we’ve got today and we have to work with that for now. It may be better down the road, but those cattle are eating today.”
Boe will be taking a step back in time genetically. He is selling his younger animals and those that he was using to build an improved herd.
“I’m back a couple of years now. But I’ll be able to build on my core herd again.”
Whalen is sending a cattle hauler from P.E.I. to pick up the animals.
“Selling cattle to the Maritimes by e-mail – who would have thought that would be an alternative market?” Boe said.
