“We’re going to join forces and open Pipestone,” states Brock Taylor in an interview Monday, just days before the first sale in the newly re-opened Pipestone Livestock Sales.
Pipestone’s auction mart closed its doors in June of 2010, a sad day for the small village of Pipestone, located just 25 minutes south of Virden.
“It was a booming place at one time, there’s a chance for it to do that again,” says Taylor optimistically.
The auction was virtually mothballed seven years ago. Now, with a few minor, and mostly cosmetic, renovations, the facility is back, up and running, after celebrating their start-up with an open house event that was held Sept. 7.
The livestock auction has capacity for at least 3,000 head of cattle, with a number of the pens virtually brand new, having only seen a couple of years use. “They did a lot of work [on the facility] the last four or five years, before they closed the place down. So there’s a bunch of pens that are, I would still call them, brand new...” says Taylor.
With a new computer system being installed this week, the auction is set to go for Friday.
Pipestone Livestock Sales will provide cattle producers from southwest Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan another market to sell their cattle through; and the buyers are showing an interest too.
“It sounds like we’ll have even more buyers than we had hoped,” said Taylor. “We’re just going to go one day per week for the start. We’ll have a sale every Friday.”
By mid-October, the pre-sort calf sales will begin, which can speed up the selling process at a time when high numbers of calves are coming in off the pastures. Buyers will then have the opportunity to purchase large pens of calves of all the same quality and weight.
Bred cow sales begin later in the fall. Pipestone hopes to run a good half-dozen such cow sales throughout the fall until Christmas, “probably on Mondays, as needed” says Taylor.
He says they had a good response seeking for employees, and have hired a crew to handle the cattle. There will be a lunch bar that will be open receiving day and, of course, open on sale day.
A partnership operation now, Taylor explains how it came about. “The Parks [family] phoned me and said they were tossing the idea around and wanted somebody to partner with them.”
Brock and Kelly Taylor of Reston, along with Rhett Parks of Whitewood, SK have partnered to reopen the Pipestone Livestock Sales.
Buyer’s seats and all have remained the same at Pipestone Livestock Sales since it was closed in 2010.
Open house celebrates Pipestone Livestock Sale’s new beginning, Sept. 7.
