MOOSE JAW, Sask. – Ernie Penney just wanted to sell a few of his own goats.
Instead, his idea of organizing a small goat auction mushroomed into a sale that offered nearly 600 commercial and purebred animals from across western Canada.
“In my wildest dreams I never imagined we’d have 500 head coming,” the Moose Jaw producer said in the days before the Sept. 20 sale.
On sale day, a semi trailer pulled up and unloaded 200 head from one seller.
“I’m amazed,” said Penney, shaking his head.
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Prices at the sale were a bit soft, said producer Ray Hauck, of Ram H Breeders in Cochrane, Alta.
Doe and buck kids sold between $10 and $70, while commercial does and doelings sold between $25 and $100. Some bucks and bucklings earned as much as $200.
Purebred stock fared better, with does and doelings selling for $50 to $250.
The top-selling lot was a purebred buck that sold for $800.
Hauck said it could easily have sold for twice that much if the American border hadn’t been closed to Canadian goats.
Like other ruminants, goats have been shut out of the U.S. market because of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Hauck brought 36 does and seven bucks to Moose Jaw.
“We’re feeding a lot of animals that are spoken for in the U.S. and Mexico,” Hauck said. “Our priority is to look after them.”
Penney said having a production sale this close to the one usually held during Canadian Western Agribition in late November shouldn’t hurt that event.
The breeding season is just beginning, and producers could pick up good stock to incorporate into their breeding programs, he said. By November, it’s too late.
Kerry O’Donnell, a Saskatchewan director on the Canadian Boer Goat Association, said the breed numbers are finally large enough to allow large production sales. The lower sale prices also allow new producers to enter the industry.
“There is some good breeding stock here,” Hauck said. “This could become a smart investment.”
Penney thinks the sale could become an annual event, given the response this year.
Buyers were on hand from as far away as British Columbia and Ontario Stockyards.
The goat meat market is largely driven by ethnic populations of the West Coast and eastern Canada.
