The fall cattle run is producing some high numbers of animals going through the sales ring and that includes Killarney Auction Mart.
This past week’s sale on Monday saw 1,405 head sold.
Owner Allan Munroe says he’s never seen a fall run like this one. “We’ve had one of our busiest fall runs ever. We started out in September with pretty good numbers and every sale has been sold out right from Thanksgiving on and it will continue that way right into December.”
Prices have been good, and Munroe says some changing dynamics are behind the higher-than-normal number of cattle being brought to auction.
We are selling more dispersal cows than ever before. We started earlier and our first full dispersal was last week, and we have sales every week. We have an annual sale December 3rd, but we have five other bred cow sales and those are all filled with either dispersal, major reductions or some bred heifers and there’s none of the sales with five or 10 cows from here and there. There are tremendous opportunities for anyone looking for cows to buy some quality stock that we haven’t seen come to town in the past number of years,” said Munroe.
Allan Munroe expects to see the Manitoba cow herd drop and he expects to see it all across North America. “That’s tough for us guys in the middle that depend on selling calves and that’s tough when you don’t have cows. I think over the next few years we’re going to see a shortage on supply on feeder cattle and it will get to a point where prices will remain strong for the near future.”
He adds profits have been there, but it hasn’t always been pushed down the production chain to cow-calve and feeder operations. Allan Munroe says those profits have stayed with packers and retailers.
“I’m hopeful a supply shortage will force to share those profits and hopefully that doesn’t result in much higher prices for consumers. He hopes it results in a better distribution of money in the industry to people who need it.”
“We’ve known for some time a lot of cattle producers are on the older side and many have reached the age where they are getting out of the industry.”