The Rural Voice, 1993-08, Page 25in the effort. The packers he used to
deal with in Toronto have followed
him to Brussels and on Tuesdays,
when typically about 1200 head of
slaughter cattle from as far afield as
eastern Ontario and Quebec are on
offer, 10 or 12 packing plants will
have buyers at ringside. Thursdays
are reserved for dropped calves, veal
calves, sheep and lambs and goats.
Fridays are stocker sales. The sale of
pigs is the one area that has declined
from the early 1980s with a light run
offered most weeks.
Gamble continues to commute
from Toronto three days a week but
his brother Don lives in Brussels. A
staff of 10-12 full-time employees
supervises the operation 24 hours a
day. On sale days the staff swells to
25-30.
Born at Grand Valley, Gamble
comes from a family with a long
tradition in the livestock industry. His
father and grandfather before him
were in the business and he joined it
at 17 in 1953. He worked for firms
such as UCO before joining what is
now Gamble and Rogers. He has
owned the company for the past 27
years. Over all those years he's seen a
lot of changes such as the drop of
beef production in Ontario and the
move of Alberta into the top spot in
Canadian production. Ontario is
likely to remain number two, Gamble
feels, but the decline in production
has probably halted.
Another change is the influence of
animal welfare advocates. "Animals
are handled with so much more care
than they were years ago," he says.
That care in tum rewards farmers and
handlers in the reduction in stress and
bruising that brings reduction in the
revenue for the cattle.
Stress, however, is something that
humans in the livestock business had
better never shake. "You have to be
always working," Gamble says. "You
always want to be digging. You never
want to be overconfident."
On sale day, Gamble is hard at
work, stomping across the sales ring,
snapping his whip at cattle to make
them tour the ring and show off their
best for the 100 or so sharp-eyed
buyers of stockers who fill the
benches high above. It's the kind of
thing you can imagine some lower
paid worker doing but here's the boss
himself. It seems he's showing no
signs of becoming overconfident.°
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AUGUST 1993 21