Farmer can't buy peanuts from sale of cow

Cheque for 52 cents!

By James Pascual

PLANTAGENET –Dairy farmer Leo Imfeld said it would have been cheaper to shoot his cow. He earned so little for the sale of one cow in January that he can’t even say he got peanuts. A bag of peanuts costs more.

He sold a nine-year-old 1,366 lb. healthy holstein recently at a local sale barn and received a cheque for 52 cents. But that didn’t cover the cost of trucking. He paid $30 to truck the cow and two calves to market. At $10 per animal for trucking, Imfeld is out $9.48.

Imfled said in a good year his cow would have fetched $600. He hoped for at least $100 but it sold for 2 cents a pound.

"That came to $27.32," he said. "But the commission for the sale was $22. OCA takes $2.25. That yard tag was 75 cents. And the F.P.P. was 5 cents. I had 52 cents on the cheque but the trucking wasn’t paid yet."

Imfeld also sold nine healthy Holsteins in early January and got $689 for the lot. "They averaged $76 a piece," he said, laughing in disbelief.

"Before the border closed I sold seven cows and I cleared $5,600."

Farmers are sometimes better off shooting their cows, he said. "But you don’t know what you’re going to get at the sale barn.