Pete
and Ande Neal, Andemar Cattle Co., St. Mary’s, Ontario, are relatively
new to the Charolais business, but their cattle industry experience is extensive
and life long.
Pete Neale was raised on a dairy farm in Ontario, and like many young men ventured west to work at various jobs in Alberta before returning home to attend Ag College. Ande was also attending college at the time in an Animal Health Technology course.
Upon graduating Pete started working in Ande’s home town on a dairy farm. Since he only stayed in the job for one year, there must have been other motivation drawing him to the position. He moved on to work for a dairy cattle broker for seven years, acquiring the skills necessary to go into business on his own.
Ande started work at the Victoria Hospital in London, where she eventually rose to the position of Senior Research Associate for the Critical Care Trauma Centre.
They purchased their present 100 acre farm at St. Mary’s fourteen years ago. This necessitated that Ande resign her position to manage the farm, as Pete was on the road buying cattle almost full time. At their business peak, they were brokering almost 5 million dollars worth of dairy cattle per year, domestically and internationally.
In
the midst of all this activity, Pete and Ande wanted a family. Their hearts
opened to welcome two beautiful daughters from China, Savannah and Aivery.
As parents hope and dream for their children, so do Pete and Ande. After attending
Agribition and watching the youth’s involvement, Pete was convinced
of the program’s value. He helped out at the Renfrew CCYA Conference
and hopes that his girls will someday be involved.
When BSE hit and the border closed, they decided to disperse their herd of 200 Holsteins to pursue a dream of Pete’s. In the dairy business you are only interested in milk production, not breeding and developing a herd. Pete had always wanted to breed a good herd, selecting genetics, planning matings and watching the progeny mature into breeding stock.
In the summer of 2003, they started to seriously look at breeds as options in this new venture. As Limousin cattle are prevalent in their area, they started checking into them, but just couldn’t connect with the producers. They also looked into Angus, but thought they were too small to meet their criteria.
At the Canadian Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock, they met Dr. Bryan Hicks and became excited and eager to learn more about the breed of white cattle.
“One thing
I noticed in my travels driving to sell and buy Holsteins in Ontario was that
Amish Dairy Farmers would have a finishing pen of steers and heifers as well
as their other cows. Probably 80-90% of these pens held Charcross cattle.
I have a great respect for the Amish business sense, they had Charcross cattle
because they made money! This gave us more confidence in the decision and
we launched a plan to purchase some registered Charolais females,” Pete
explained.
They purchased a select group of females locally in Ontario and then came to Agribition in the Fall of 2003. They were not only thrilled when they purchased GMC Monique 5M at the Diva Sale, but they were absolutely hooked when she became the Reserve Junior Champion Female the next day at the show.
While at Agribition they went out to Chardel Charolais, Moose Jaw, and had a nice visit with Dave Delahey. They liked Dave’s cows but couldn’t manage to put a deal together. They bought a heifer from Buffalo Lake Charolais and one from Wilgenbusch Charolais.
After the show they travelled to Halbrite and purchased a package of commercial bred heifers. They started to attend more sales and bought three bred heifers of Wilgenbusch’s at the Sterling Sale. This relationship forged a strong bond between their farms and families that is even stronger today. They managed to buy 30 females over the next year with some of their purchases at the Chardel and Harder dispersals. “We bought six head from the Delaheys and wish we had bought more. It is one our biggest regrets, we should have bought more,” Ande says.
In that first year they got a lot of great advise from some good breeders. The sharks were swimming around too, but they managed to sift through the information to glean what they needed.
Pete joined the Ontario Charolais Association Board in 2004 and has found it to be very rewarding and has now become the OCA President.
We soon realized that we needed to have a bull sale instead of selling the bulls privately and they also knew they needed a partner.
After discussing the idea with a few people, they drove up to Saunders Charolais to have a visit about a joint sale. The visit led to plans for their first sale. “What a great family to work with. Our first two sales with them were very successful. Both Ande and I love the bull sale aspect of our operation,” says Pete.
They really thought a female sale in Ontario would help raise the profile of the breed to where it needed to be.
Being people of actions,
not just words, they called nine other breeders from across Ontario to meet
over Sunday Brunch. The Uppin’ the Ante Female Sale was launched and
the group now has two very successful annual sales behind them. The Neals
were proud of all of the cattle put forth by the consignors. As a group they
discussed what would make the breed last in their province. Some people said
Juniors, so as a group they pushed for some Junior incentives at the sales.
One very definite highlight was the OCA hosting the National Charolais Show and Sale at the 85th Royal Winter Fair. “It was a huge success right from the start of the sale reception to the end of the show the next day. It was especially poignant for me as I’ve had a dream to show cattle at the big show at the Royal since I was a little gaffer being dragged around every year at the Royal by my family,” says Pete.
“Mike Early, a good friend to Ande and I, has been instrumental in fulfilling the goal to show Charolais.” Showing Hercules as the Grand Champion Bull was just icing on the cake.
Being action oriented people, the Neals always have goals in mind to work towards. Currently, they are reducing their 135 registered females to 70 and plan to keep the current number of 100 commercial cows. The commercial cowherd is mainly Red Angus x Simmental bred Charolais. They belong to the Bruce Peninsula Cow/Calf Producers Group headed by a good friend, John Mielhausen. The group sells about 1500 Charcross calves at the Keady Market in October.
They also have their eye on another target that came about while a handful of breeders from across Canada were sitting around a tack box socializing about classification. They feel it would be an excellent direction for the Charolais breed to go. They have seen the affects it has on the dairy business and know it would help Charolais breeders and more specifically the smaller breeders.
This is how it would work. Several trained herd classifiers travel across the country visiting herds approximately every nine months.
This is done on
a user pay basis. The classifiers are trained in only one breed and are very
professional. They classify the milking females only and herdsires. To do
this they compare each animal they are classifying to a true type model that
the breed association approves. They would classify things like feet and legs,
udders, body capacity, head, etc.
“I feel this could be a great asset to breeders both buying and selling animals. Not only to point out what strengths and deficiencies their animals have, but also as a marketing tool,” says Pete.
Scoring of animals starts on a point system – poor, good, good plus, very good and excellent. “If you are interested in buying a certain pedigreed animal, it would be nice to know she is scored Very Good already. Better yet, if her dam and granddam are as well, you will travel a long distance and be prepared to buy her.”
“On the flip side of this, if you are selling semen or embryos outside the country, prospective buyers have much more confidence in what they are buying. I feel we would need to consult Holstein Canada to initiate and follow this process through. If enough breeders take part, the cost to certify is not terribly high. It is especially good for breeders selling bulls to get a type profile on herdsires.”
Savannah and Aivery Once an animal is classified, it is stamped right on the pedigree or registration paper. Females may start as good plus with their first calf, but may move up to excellent by the time they are five or six.
“It creates an understanding that a cow classified as excellent in your
barn will be an excellent cow in anyone’s barn. It helps the smaller
breeders who can’t afford a high profile promotional campaign to get
the word out about the quality of their herd. When you have a female classified
as excellent, she gets noticed,” explains Ande.
While planning and
initiating their goals, they have discovered some side benefits they weren’t
anticipating. They have made a lot of great friends and find that beef people
are more ‘take me as I am’ grounded people. They have received
a lot of support and when asking for help, people step up to the plate and
get it done. “Ontario people work well together at shows and it’s
a nice environment to work in,” says Ande.
They would still like to see the profile of Charolais raised in Ontario. Hosting the National Show and Sale created a lot of excitement with huge attendance, including new breeders and new buyers. A lot of support from the west helped create this excitement and it would be nice to see it spread across Canada.
They have definitely made the switch from dairy to beef cattle successfully. With the enthusiasm and ability to act upon their goals and ideas, they will be a positive force within the industry.