This year’s commercial cattle show at Agribition brings the very best in Canadian cattle to the Queen City.
"It's a great place to compare you're breeding program, the part that's different here is of course this is kind of the grassroots of the cattle industry, and people are able to use different crosses of pure breed cattle to come up with a combination here,” said Reed Andrew, former president of Canadian Western Agribition.
The cattle at the 2017 show were born either this year or last year. They are brought out in groups of five or ten and sorted by their grouped weight and the average weight of each heifer. However, getting cattle that have a uniform look is no easy task.
"There's always something a little different so your breeding program has to be really strong and you have to be able to select these out to be uniform and the type, same style and quality,” said Andrew.
One thing that separates commercial cattle from purebred is that they aren't groomed the same way. They often come straight from the farm.
“In the commercial one, it's really important how they walk and stuff like that. You don't want them too fat or over fed, you just want something that will go home and you can put in the pasture and it'll just be a good cow,” said Samantha Marcino from Sentes Farms.
Cattle appearing in the commercial show come from Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. Many will be sold following the show. Once the sale is complete, they can be sent as far away as British Columbia or Ontario.
"For a person or spectator that doesn't know the livestock business, you know it’s fun to sit in the crowd and try to pick your pick out of the 4, see how close you are to the judge of the day,” said Andrew.
"For our family we really like to come because we're not into the purebreds, this is our life and this is what we do...it's kind of our real cows and this is actually what we do at home,” said Marcino.
