Canada lines up cattle for restocking

5 April 2001



Canada lines up cattle for restocking

By Isabel Davies

FIVE thousand pedigree cattle from Canada have been lined up ready to meet the expected demand for replacement stock after the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Lancaster-based Robin Loxam Imports has arranged an option on at least 5000 pedigree Holsteins with the New Brunswick provincial government.

Company director Robin Loxam said he had contacted the Canadian government after farmers told him they were worried about restocking.

“People have been contacting us on a continuous basis to ask us where replacement stock is going to come from,” he said.

“They are looking for stock, but are in a bind to judge how many will be around, because there are no indications of how many Holsteins have been culled.”

Mr Loxam said even before foot-and-mouth, it looked like there could be an enormous shortage of registered pedigree heifers.

This fear stemmed from the fact that AI companies have been largely selling beef semen for the past two years.

Mr Loxam said he had made the arrangements because producers who had gone through the trauma of losing their herds wanted quality animals.

“The animals will be of exceptional quality,” he said. “There is no other country to touch Canada in terms of health quality and status.”