ESTEVAN — R Plus Simmentals has been a leader in purebred cattle for decades, but their time in the industry is nearing its end.
A dispersal sale on Dec. 21 and 22 at their farm west of Estevan will be for their entire purebred operation. A total of 950 live cattle will available. T Bar C Cattle Co. will be conducting the auction, and Chris Poley will be the auctioneer.
Marlin LeBlanc, who operates the farm with his wife Lucille, said they thought now was the time to retire.
"The purebred business is very demanding, and we just felt we wanted to slow down and maybe start to enjoy life a little bit," said Marlin LeBlanc. "We're 365 days a year, no days off, and it's demanding."
He expects it will be the biggest dispersal sale of its kind in Canada.
As a purebred operation, the LeBlancs face a lot of extra work. They have a lot of cattle on their land and having a purebred operation is even more time-consuming.
"We run two full-time men and myself, and the paperwork of the purebred business is big," said LeBlanc. "So, in all of that, I do all of the calving and I do all the AI [artificial insemination]."
They AI about 500-600 cattle per year, which is very labour-intensive, he said. Calving is a 60-day process.
But he has enjoyed being in the industry.
"The purebred business is a lot of fun," he said. "You take cattle to a whole another level for management, plus trading and genetics. We've been very successful or lucky. We sold a lot of bulls that have really influenced the Simmental breed, and that's quite rewarding for us."
The R Plus Simmentals pedigree will be found in a lot of catalogues.
And while they decided to wrap up the operation, LeBlanc said there is a lot they will miss about it.
"The people we will miss, the calving, the cows, everything about it, I'll miss, because I love doing it, but there's always a time for everything, and we just felt the time's right now because if we don't slow down pretty soon, we won't get to slow down," said LeBlanc.
They have had calls and tours from people in Australia, the U.S. and most of the Canadian provinces. There will be a mixture of online and live, in-person bidding.
"We've sold cattle to every province in Canada, and probably into 10 or 12 different states in the U.S. We do have semen on bulls in Australia and on bulls we raised."
They announced earlier this year that they would have the disbursement sale a couple days after their final bull sale in March.
LeBlanc noted this is a good time of the year to have the sale, because it's the last one and all the other sales are finished.
"These were the only dates that were available when we started planning this," said LeBlanc.
Once the sale is finished, they will have a few cows remaining.
LeBlanc isn't sure what they will do next. He expects they will manage to find some bulls and something to do involving agriculture. But he is confident they will remain on the farm.
"We wanted to get through this sale, get all of the cattle delivered, and then we'll start worrying about our next step," said LeBlanc
