Cattle producers in the Parkland region of Manitoba have found a simple solution to the feed shortage in the region.
In a word: culling.
“Hard culling…. The auction mart here is full. It was full last week. It’s full this week,” said Pam Iwanchysko, a livestock extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture in Dauphin.
“There are a lot of guys who are just getting rid of their herds.”
Hundreds of cattle producers in parts of Manitoba, particularly the region between Riding Mountain and Lake Manitoba, the area north of Ste. Rose du Lac and the Interlake region, are struggling with a severe shortage of feed.
Read Also
Manitoba horticulture hits the books
The 2025 Horticulture School in Brandon covered tools to extend Manitoba’s vegetable and fruit growing season, horticulture crop agronomy and new research like peat sustainability
A prolonged drought cut into hay production this summer and many fields yielded half or less than half the normal number of bales.
Rain finally fell in late August and September, allowing ranchers to graze cattle into early October. But then an Oct. 11-12 storm dumped 30 to 50 centimetres of snow on Manitoba.
“The field conditions are extremely saturated,” Iwanchysko said.
“I spoke to a few producers this weekend, who have standing corn that they will not be able to (harvest for silage)….. It’s not looking very good here with regards to additional feed supplies.”
For producers willing to pay the cost of freight, as of Oct. 21 the Manitoba Hay Listing Service had four pages of listings. The list includes wheat in the swath, standing oats, oat-barley green feed and alfalfa-grass bales.
However, many of those fields may be too wet for harvest or transport of feed.
In the region near Dauphin and Ste. Rose du Lac, many cattle producers can’t stomach the cost and hassle of buying feed from other parts of the province.
Plus, any excess feed in the affected region is already spoken for, Iwanchysko said.
“They (cattle producers) are just going to disperse their herd.”
