We have a purebred Shorthorn herd ... also a small commercial herd of about 40 cows... mostly Angus/Maine crosses and a few tan Shorthorn/ Char crosses. These are mostly used as recips. The purebred herd usually around 150 cows, presently at about 100 cows but we also have 55 heifers to breed this spring. Our purebred herd is down right now as we sold 73 bred females in the last year, privately off the farm. This has kinda taken a big chunk of the heart of the herd and left us with the best cows and several lower end cows that are also used as recips. As dry as it is here, I think we will be doing a major bottom end reduction this year. I can always get more recips if it ever decides to rain here again. If it ever does rain here, someone may have to throw a pail of dust on me to revive me!! It simply is not right to be wearing sneakers in the cattle pens in March and April. I think some of you down south east of here are hogging all the rains!
When BSE hit Canada, we lost a big chunk of our purebred cattle market and also lost about 1/2 our income as we could no longer sell to the US. We decided to expand our ET program, and while it was a very risky venture, it has paid excellent dividends. It has also made us become better marketers, as there is nothing that can stimulate one to get some cattle or embryos sold than receiving a $10,000 ET bill in the mail. As many of you know, ET is not for everyone. What it has done for us is it has opened up the entire world as a marketplace. ET + the internet has become our best pieces of technology. Never in my wildest dreams, would I have believed what the internet could do, in regards to marketing breeding stock , five or six years ago. Today, my computer is my most valuable piece of farm equipment. In the past two weeks I have sold 10 embryos to Scotland, sold a flush to New Zealand, sold at least 3 bulls in our bull sale to buyers who saw our bull sale catalogue online,received and order for embryos from England, and last night I completed a large sale of embryos to Australia. All these sales were to people I have never met, and who have never seen our cattle.... all from a simple website. I have become a big believer in the power of the internet.
With the costs of travel and the costs of fuel spiralling out of control upwards, I believe my computer will only become more important. Sorry for getting off topic .... AGAIN!!
