For the most part it was a mild winter, and although spring was a little chilly, it was still fairly good for calving season!  We know March in Manitoba can be miserable!

"We're right in the middle of calving season right now and the reports coming in from everybody is that they're having pretty good luck calving and the general consensus is that calves seem to be a little bigger this year than they have been other years," shares Executive Administrative for the Manitoba Livestock Marketing Association, Rick Wright.

"And these calves are going to be worth a lot of money in the fall, barring a major black swan event such as a border closure or something like BSE popping up," he adds.

Wright says the MLMA expect the cattle market to remain strong, "of course it's going to follow the grain prices and they're talking about drought in some of the areas, but the grain has actually been going down. It hasn't been going up.  We import a lot of feed from the US and as long as they can grow it down there and have the surplus then we'll be able to import it and get it to the feedlots here."

At the cattle auction at Virden's Heartland Livestock on March 23rd, just over 3100 cattle went through the gate as 17 auctioneers from across Manitoba and Saskatchewan competed in the ManSask Auctioneer Championships.   Wright says the cattle prices were very healthy, prices he hadn't seen before.

He notes this is a great way to start the spring season for cattle producers across the province!

Please listen to more with Rick Wright below as he shares more of the cattle prices at the March 23rd auction, as well as what spring looks like for cattle producers.