Killarney Auction Mart's first sale of the Fall season took place early this week with 832 cattle through the ring.  Cattle numbers were strong, and so is the market.

 "It was incredible," says owner/auctioneer Allan Munroe.  "We're seeing prices we've never seen before and its more cattle than what we generally see in September. Looking at our bookings for September it's going to be the busiest September we've had." 

Munroe says the strong demand for Canadian beef, both in the country and as an export, are factors that contribute to the strong market.

"We're at that time of the cattle cycle and we've had a tremendous demand for beef," he explains, "and with drought and the market, the way it's been the last number of years we've had people exiting the business, so there are fewer cows across North America than there has been for a very, very long time."

In the Killarney area, Munroe feels there is adequate feed and though the price for forage is not cheap, it is not the level that was expected given the lack of moisture. 

Yearlings coming off grass was the majority of what Munroe saw herded through Monday's auction ring.  "That's what we see at this time of year," he says.  "We're starting to see a little sprinkle of calves.  We probably had about 80-90 calves out of our 830 cattle on [Monday].  Next week we'll still see quite a few yearlings coming through, a few more calves and then by the end of the month will be majority early calves coming through then."

"It's an exciting time to be in the cattle business," adds Munroe. "As one person said, ''We're finally seeing inflation on the correct side of the ledger this time, for once."'

"Hopefully, we're looking at 2 or 3 years anyway with very strong prices... it's fun and it's exciting to finally be seeing what we've been waiting for!"

Please listen to more with Allan Munroe below!

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