Cattle ready to pour into Stratton

Sales barn manager Russell Richards is expecting 700 head of cattle or more to go up for bids Saturday during the Rainy River Cattlemen Association’s (RRCA) annual spring sale in Stratton.
Richards said there’s a good number of “top quality cattle” which are destined for the Stratton auction ring. In addition to the large number of calves, Richards said there are some heavier weight cattle in the sale this year, too.
“There’s a single lot of 30-40 head from one farm,” Richards said. “We’ve got down east buyers coming and we’ll have west-Manitoba buyers coming. The Feeder Finance has got quite a few dollars out there to be spent as well.
“I think we’re looking real good,” he added.
Peter Spuzak, RRCA president, said the mild winter has been good for local producers, allowing some farmers to keep a few more head of cattle on their farm.
Grain prices also have remained low, he added, and when grain prices are down, the cattle market generally tends to thrive.
“The market’s holding pretty steady,” Spuzak said. “People have still got a good demand for those calves.”
The sale gets underway at about 9 a.m. Saturday and normally runs until early evening. Spuzak noted in some of the western cattle sales, it isn’t uncommon for things to run until midnight before the last animal is sold off.
“Our sales go along pretty good,” he said. “A lot of cattle are sold in ones and twos in the west while our cattle tend to be in a package, which I think makes for a good sale.”
Meanwhile, the RRCA might be one step closer to having a ring scale put in the Stratton sales barn.
Spuzak said the association’s application to the Northern Heritage Funding Corp. has moved to the second phase of the approval process.
“Basically, it sounds like everything is going to come through okay,” Spuzak said. “As soon as the spring sale is over, it looks like we’ll get the scales. But that’s not official yet.”
Spuzak said the cattlemen still have to meet with the corporation once more to go over their proposal again. But he said the group is at the stage where they are “optimistic” about the outcome.
“Our time frame was to start on [the project] after the spring sale and it just might happen,” Spuzak remarked. “And if it works out, we’ll have something in place for our first fall sale.”