THE ROYAL WINTER FAIR’S BIG BOVINE BUYERS COME TO TOWN
Cows drew big money at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair’s “Sale of Stars” auction. Now in its 63rd year, it attracted serious bovine buyers from across the province and the globe to throw down more than $1 million in bids on dairy heifers and calves, hoping to cash in on their good genetics and, ideally, prolific milk-producing offspring.
‘Noah’s Ark’ Last year, auction participants came from 42 countries to bid on Holsteins, a popular dairy breed and part of the 6,000 livestock being shepherded through the Canadian National Exhibition gates in 2015. “It’s like Noah’s ark,” says Peter Hohenadel, the fair’s director of agriculture and food. “They’re not animals that are going to be sold for hamburgers.”
‘Rock star heifer’ Max Poulin handled “rock star heifer” Alexerin Monterey’s turn in the spotlight Thursday night. The daughter of a “supersire” sold for $170,000, making it the highest-fetching cow out of the 80 lowing onstage at the auction. One Holstein up for bidding in 2011, “Missy the Million-Dollar Cow,” had sold for $1.2 million two years earlier, hammering home how the fair means big business.
Genomic perfection The top-of-the-line cows at the fair’s “Sale of Stars” are valuable for their genetics, which they can pass on to milk-, butter- and embryo-producing calves as well as their sires. Those would-be studs then mature into bulls that can be sold to artificial insemination facilities for prolific procreation in the dairy field.
Guerrilla protest: Cowing the farmers About 20 animal rights activists interrupted the auction Thursday night, shouting, “Their bodies, not ours; justice for animals.” Security eventually hemmed in the protesters who drew curses from the crowd. The demonstrators, most part of the group Direct Action Everywhere, were escorted outside the Enercare Centre after about 10 minutes of chanting.
Embryonic deals David and Pam Booth flew from Yorkshire, England, where they have 280 head of cattle on their dairy farm, to put in a successful $10,000 bid for a heifer along with four other stakeholders. The cow will stay in Canada, but the Booths hope to have 20 to 30 embryos flown across the pond next year.