There were only three active cattle auctions in Manitoba for the week ending June 23, as most facilities have either closed for the summer or switched to a biweekly schedule. Along with the Grunthal Livestock Auction Mart, Heartland’s auctions in Brandon and Virden pressed ahead with their sales during the week.
Brandon manager Keith Cleaver said the amount of cattle coming to auction has declined significantly. For instance, for Brandon’s June 21 sales they sold 244 head compared to 392 the week before.
“There’s not a lot of feeder cattle and the slaughter numbers are starting to drop off as well,” Cleaver commented.
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Grunthal saw lower numbers of cattle coming to auction as well, with 90 for its June 21 sales compared to 223 on June 14. Bucking the downward trend was Virden, which saw its influx increase from 517 at the June 15 sale to 785 on June 22.
Although southern Manitoba has been inundated with excessive moisture, be it spring run-off or frequent rains, Cleaver said that really hasn’t prevented producers from bringing their cattle to market.
“Sometimes they’re having to wait a week or whenever it dries up enough until they can get to the pens to get (the cattle) out,” he said.
As for prices, Cleaver noted they have remained “quite strong for the slaughter cattle and the feeder cattle have edged up some as well.”
With the slaughters, D1-D2 cattle sold for $93 to $104 per hundredweight (cwt) at Brandon’s June 14 auction and those bumped up to $97 to $110 at the June 21 sale. Good bulls experienced small gains, rising from $125 to $140/cwt the previous week to $130 to $149 this week.
In a number of instances the feeders, steers and heifers, saw their prices hold steady to nudging up a little bit. Most notable were the 800- to 900-pound steers, which went for $185 to $205/cwt on June 14 and fetched $190 to $211 on June 21.
Among those facilities not having a sale this week was the Ashern Auction Mart. Its website didn’t indicate when the next auction was scheduled. Gladstone was also closed, with its final sale of the summer set for June 28. Killarney wrapped things up on June 13 and its website also doesn’t note when things will resume. Ste. Rose Auction Mart finished last week for the summer, and is slated to reopen on Aug. 25. Winnipeg Livestock Sales is on its biweekly schedule with its sale on June 24.
