The Rural Voice, 1999-09, Page 16Value-added beef
A little extra work can bring big returns for cow -calf
producers meeting the needs o, their bu
Ron Kuhl uses the comparison
to buying a pick-up truck
when he's trying to convince
cow -calf operators to look at adding
value to their calves before offering
them for sale to backgrounders or
feed Tots.
In 1969, he says, you could buy a
brand new pick-up truck for $2300
— a basic truck with manual
transmission, gear shift on the
column, vinyl seats, no power
steering or power brakes, no radio.
Now, he asks, what would people
expect in a truck in the 1990s?
People say they want four-wheel
drive, bucket seats, a CD player and
more. It isn't a trick by the
automakers to get people to spend
money but something truck buyers
want, Kuhl says.
And likewise, buyers want more
when they're purchasing their fall
supply of calves, says Kuhl. The
buyer wants a calf that's vaccinated,
that's been properly neutered and
properly dehorned. Then he's willing
to pay extra money.
And so three years ago Kuhl and
his partners in Keady Livestock
Market, Gary Kuhl and Tom
McNabb, began a series of presorted
calf sales that require sellers to meet
new, higher standards to be included.
They had to do something, Ron
says. It was the bottom of the market
and calves were hard to sell at any
price. The auction for Hereford
heifers would start at 45 cents a
12 THE RURAL VOICE
pound — and go nowhere.
"People were depressed. We
thought we could do a lot better job
of marketing", he says. "We had no
choice".
By comparison the same calves
last year would sell for $1.15 to
$ 1.20.
Presorted calf sales weren't new
in the business when the Keady
partners began, just new to Ontario.
Out west most of the calf sales are
pre-sort sales, Ron says.
The benefits for buyers are
immediate. They can buy lots of
cattle that are all sorted to meet their
specifications. Cattle in a given pen
may not come from the same cow -
calf producer but they will all be in
the same weight range and have the
same body characteristics.
The added benefit is the time
saving. Cattle used to be put through
in small Tots from individual buyers.
The sale could start at 10:00 a.m. and
drag on to 6:00 p.m. before the last
calf was sold. Now the sale is over by
noon, and some buyers who have
filled their needs may be finished
before that, have paid for their cattle
and have them on the truck, moving
to their new hdme.
The bonus is cattle spend less time
under stressful situations and are
ready to settle in to their new homes
much faster.
As well as the time saving and
convenience for buyers over the old
system, comes the attraction of
calves that are ready to go ... and
grow.
Back in the days prior to the
presort sales, Ron says, some bull
calves would come in that had been
pinched but the job hadn't taken.
Some would still look bullish, some
would have "belly stones", some
with one testicle intact.
Few of the calves were
vaccinated. Often they hadn't been
dehorned or had been dehorned
improperly. It was a nightmare for
buyers trying to get quality stock for
their feeding operations.
Convincing suppliers of •the value
of the extra work preparing calves for
fall marketing was a more of a task
than convincing buyers. At first some
producers weren't sure, Ron recalls.
To overcome hesitancy, they
visited seven or eight producers,
taking along a veterinarian to give
proper instructionoon vaccinating,
dehorning and castrating.
"We're trying to keep ourselves in
business," McNabb says.
"It's a win-win situation," adds
Ron. "The better job we can do for
our customers the stronger they'll be
and that helps us too."
"We want to stay in business too,"
adds Gary. "The bottom line is it's
very competitive out there"
There's a market for better
Ontario calves because more western
calves are staying in the west, Gary
says. Those calves were favourites
with Ontario feedlot owners because