Great day for a Hereford sale

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Nothing kick starts the Thanksgiving holiday weekend like a good Hereford cattle production sale.

I was out touring the country last Saturday with brother-in-law Joe — first a stop at Princess Auto, an amazing store that always has a fantastic

Ringmen keep track of bids at the Remitall West Production Sale.

stock of things I need, even though I didn’t know that walking in the door, then on to a John Deere dealership, and then a stop at Remitall West Production Sale near Olds, Alta. (www.remitallwest.com)

It was a beautiful fall day as we stopped at the Remitall farm sales barn, where Bryan and Annette Latimer hosted about 100 buyers and guests for the annual sale of purebred Hereford heifer and bull calves, bred heifers and embryos.

Ryan Dorran was auctioneer for the afternoon. I haven’t seen sale results but it looked like cattle were moving quite well. The 850 to 1150 pound bull calves appeared to be selling in the $4,500 to $6,500 range, while the 700 to 850 pound heifers appeared to be in the $3,000 to $5,000 range, and embryos $600 to $1,000. Along with Western Canada buyers, some of this breeding stock was headed to New Brunswick, parts of the U.S. and even to Australia.

Some of the Remitall mature cows

They were certainly fine looking animals, although we didn’t buy anything. Joe, who is an owner/manager at Kootenay River Ranch in B.C. tends to focus on using Angus and Simmental breeding stock, but he thought it would be good to see what other breeds had to offer.

We stayed about an hour and then had to move on to other social events of the day. We aren’t very good planners however. We arrived at Remitall too late for lunch and left before happy hour started — that’s something we obviously have to work on.

WORDS TO LIVE BY

So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.–Will Rogers