REGINA – A half interest worth $115,000 in a Black Angus cow that sold to Saudi Arabian partners has injected a major dose of enthusiasm into the purebred cattle business.
Offered at the second annual Gala on Prairies sale Nov. 28 in Regina, sale manager Hugh Ross was beaming after the event, which saw live animals, embryos, semen and flushes headed for herds in Canada and the United States. The Saudi sale was the gravy.
The deal has been in the works for about a week and it could lead to more sales, said Ross. The unnamed partners are looking for Canadian Black Angus cattle and he is happy to put together packages of high performing cattle.
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“We are in preliminary talks with them,” he said.
The cow came from Shane Cadieux’s Southland Angus herd at Shaunavon, Sask. Named Southland On Time 21M, it is one of the herd’s top embryo donors and has mothered champions that have won shows across Canada.
It is an exciting venture because these are new customers and new money injected as uncertainty prevails over the future of the beef business.
“The border is open (but) economic uncertainty in agriculture and the world is interesting,” Ross said.
As trade starts to improve, events like the World Angus Forum in Calgary in July should lift spirits even higher. The show could see 1,000 head of cattle on display including an international program where embryos from around the world were implanted in host Canadian cattle.
The gala sale was held using video, internet and phone bids at a posh downtown Regina hotel during Canadian Western Agribition.
Other sales that evening included $20,000 for the pick of the 2009 heifer calf crop raised at Dennis and Shelly Ericson’s Get-A-Long Farms at Wetaskiwin, Alta. Chinook Arch Angus and Cottage Creek Angus of Innisfail, Alta., were the buyers.
Semen lots containing 40 doses per package were fetching between $1,500 and $4,000 each and embryo packages from leading herds fetched $500 and up.
