Who knows how much Ken Frazer might have paid for Red Stockman of Cudlobe?
“The sky was the limit as far as I was concerned,” he told reporters after paying $53,000 for the Angus bull calf.
The Angus Masterpiece sale was held on the first day of purebred cattle sales at Canadian Western Agribition, and the price held up as the highest of the event.
A half-interest and 422 straws of semen from the two-year-old grand champion Red Angus at Toronto’s Royal Winter Fair sold for $37,000 just minutes before the Cudlobe calf entered the ring.
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Prices throughout the sale were strong, reflecting the popularity wave the breed has been riding.
Frazer’s interest in the red calf, consigned by Cudlobe Farms of Stavely, Alta., stemmed from the fact that its parents are black.
“He’ll do a job for us, I’m sure,” said Frazer, who is retired.
The family got into the Angus business 31 years ago at Six Mile Red Angus. They ran a commercial operation before that. Two of Frazer’s grandchildren are carrying on in the business and got an early Christmas present.
Dyce Bolduc, who operates Cudlobe Farms, was thrilled with the price his bull earned.
“We thought he’d bring $10,000,” he said, his face beaming.
But as soon as he arrived at the show, the interest being expressed in the bull was extraordinary.
“If we could have put up a tent and charged a dollar we could have paid the hotel bill for a week,” he laughed.
Bolduc runs 250 Angus cows, most of them black, on his 4,000 acre operation in the foothills of southwestern Alberta. He crops 2,500 of those acres.
He said the interest in the bull and the purchase price indicate the excitement within the breed.
“He is new genetics for the Red Angus industry,” Bolduc said.
He said the industry has been growing by leaps and bounds in the last five to 10 years, driven by both packers and consumers because of high quality meat.
Branded beef programs, like the new Canadian Certified Angus and its American counterpart, Certified Angus Beef, haven’t hurt.
Bolduc added Agribition is a good place to get a read on what is happening in the industry.
“This will be the No. 1 show in the country this year,” he said, adding the Red show is the largest.
Last year, a two-thirds interest in a Red Angus bull topped the Agribition sale at $59,000.
