1,475 head sold at spring cattle sale Saturday

By Ken Johnston
Editor

If you were in Stratton over the weekend chances were it was to participate in big business at the Stratton Sales Barn.
The Rainy River Cattlemen’s Association held their annual spring sale. “We will sell anything even your chickens at this sale,” said sales manager Russell Richards Monday. They did sell one horse but other than that they saw 1,475 head of cattle go through the barn.
Of those 160 were fall calves and the rest were “bigger stockers” said Richards. The majority were in the 550-900 lbs. range.
Richards said he did not hear any negative comments about the sale and only had about a half a dozen buy backs from owners who might not have liked the prices they got. He said that is about normal for a sale.
He said that the Feeder Finance program played a big role at the sale and the rest of the animals were sold about 50/50 to buyers from the east and west.
Richards said prices were comparable to Winnipeg which he said was good. “Of course with the way fuel and fertilizer costs are going they can always use more, but what they got was good.”
The sale saw one new trial balloon floated that Richards thinks went really well. “We sold them in big batches this time.” In some cases the ring scale was filled, emptied and then filled again before the entire lot of cattle were sold. “This was a better way to do things and often the farmer received a couple of cents more per pound.”
The next sale for the RRCA is their Yearling Sale scheduled for Sept. 8, 2007.