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Drought shrinks Manitoba cattle herds

Rain comes too late to stop the sell off of cow herds for many Manitoba farmers.

It was a first. Heartland Livestock Services in Virden stayed open all summer, running regular cattle sales every week. Manager Robin Hill said it was to accommodate cattle producers who needed to reduce their herd numbers as pasture and water ran out. This week was Hill’s final week with Heartland, having taken on a new job within the cattle industry.

The drought has been building, he says. Hill is also a Lenore area cattle farmer. “I think… for me, this isn’t the first year of drought. It’s been three years. Although rain was sparse last year, there were timely rains.” But not this year.

Reeve of the RM of Pipestone Archie McPherson stated back in June that the countryside was “as dry as in the ‘80s.” He referred to sloughs and dugouts drying up and said hay crops were doomed to a poor harvest.

As of Aug. 25, many locally are reporting three inches of rain over several days and there’s more in the forecast. Another cattleman stated this week that this year is one for the records because of the extreme drought, going to extreme rainfall at harvest time.

While desperately needed to stave off complete desiccation of the land, this rain came at a bad time for harvesters and it was too late to help crops as they are already filled.

For cattle producers, the green rushed back into the grass, making for a better fall. Will it cause people on the brink of dumping a bunch of cows to hold off? Because, it’s no secret that cows are having a tough time on the market.

Manitoba-based cattle order buyer Rick Wright, and now head of a new cattle sales office in Virden, is looking ahead at what this drought year is doing to Manitoba cattle numbers.

“I would not be surprised if we lost 20 per cent or even higher of our basic beef cattle breeding herd due to the drought,” he said, adding that conditions in the Virden area are not as bad as in some parts of the province. “But it’s Western Canada-wide so it’s certainly serious.”

A look at the US Drought Monitor as of August 26, the northern and western United States are also categorized between abnormally dry to extreme drought.

There have been other dry times, with hay crops failing, but Wright points out, “In the past when we had a drought in Manitoba or in Alberta, you could go somewhere else and buy feed and bring it in. Or there would be demand for your cattle to ship to another part of the country.”

Now, there’s very little demand for the bred cow or cull cow market in Western Canada

“So a lot of cows are going to the packing plant and getting killed. The effect of the drought won’t be done next year, even if the drought goes away. In Manitoba we’re going to see…probably two to three to get back into the building cycle,” says Wright, also acknowledging that could be an optimistic reckoning. “The drought has meant that a lot of guys couldn’t keep their replacement heifers to build their herds back up.”

As for the mature cattle market, he says it has swamped the slaughter plants in the west. “There’s more cows coming than they can handle,” but he says “Americans buy a lot of cows out of Manitoba and they’ve kind of put a floor price under the market.”

Yearling cattle normally start to show up at Heartland in mid-August. But Christmas came early this year. “Definitely we’ve marketed over half the yearlings, if not more,” said Hill.

“A lot of the yearlings never even got out to grass this spring, because of the conditions.” Stockpiles of feed held the young cattle in yards well into the spring. “The silage pile was greater than the grass pile (pasture) so a lot of the grass cattle were marketed early….” He added, that feeder cattle and fed cattle markets are very good.

Cows and bulls make up half the auction’s business every week, says Hill. “The only thing that’s kind of tough today is the cow and bull trade.”

Pasture shortages are pushing everything to market earlier. “The fall run (weaned calves) is probably going to start, I’m guessing, three weeks earlier.”

The fact is that producers who can survive this drought and maintain their herds will likely see a strong market next year and perhaps several years to come.

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