More Cattle Sold, to be Shipped to Russia.

LINDSAY — The second largest export of Canadian breeding stock since a single case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) closed the border to the U.S. in 2003 is about to go down.

A total of 1,800 head of cattle, valued at $7 million, will be traveling to Russia in about the third week of October. Currently quarantined at a farm in Lindsay belonging to John Buckley, they’ll begin the journey to Quebec and the beginning of the voyage overseas about October 20. The shipment will consist of 600 to 700 bred Holstein heifers, about 30 Black Angus bulls, with the remainder bred Angus heifers. "There are some Herefords," says Ed McMorrow, of McMorrow Cattle Company at Lindsay, one of the brokers who got the deal done.

He described the cattle, herded off farms from the Maritimes to Alberta, as "good quality breeding stock."  The prices, he said, are a little below the prices farmers received just before BSE closed the border. McMorrow, who has been stung before on international deals, declined to speculate on future shipments, saying nothing has been confirmed on future deals, "though the intent is to buy more."

However, the cattle deals are "still pretty exciting" and encouraging for the cattle industry, he says. He points out that high quality beef cattle for export are at a premium and dairy heifers across Canada are in short supply.  This is the second shipment in the last five months that McMorrow has helped put together. The first, also destined for Russia, consisted of 2,000 cows and filled an entire ship. That historic deal was made through Alberta-Based Alta Exports International Ltd. and a private Russian company.

A shipment of 1,500 breeding stock to Russia, involving Holstein Canada’s Brian Leech, was negotiated in July.