Question on mandatory age verification.

[grassfarmer]

With the intention being to get all 2008 Alberta born calves age verified I wonder how this will play out with regard to calves already being sold unverified. If there is going to be a price reduction paid on unverified calves going forward (i'm thinking in 2009 here)how does that place the guy who may want to buy calves this fall and doesn't know what he is buying? Specifically what are the auction markets doing about it now? Are they using a declaration signed by producers to indicate whether their calves are verified at time of sale? If not, why not and will there potentially be a liability situation if a buyer buys calves that are harder to sell next year because the breeder has not bothered to register them and the auction mart hasn't done anything to inform buyers of the calves status?
Any opinions?

[smcgrath76]

GF - any calves we have sold at auction that were age verified had to be accompanied by a birth certificate printed from the CCIA website and signed by yours truly.
This lists the rfid tag number, the birthdate and method of dating.
I doubt whether all auctions announce the calves as age verified, but they know they better do ours. I don't know what you do in a presort situation.

[per]

I am just speculating GF, but it is not against the law to sell these calves right now. If there is any liability it would be on whoever owns them in January. It would most likely make the seller not able to collect their wellfare payment part 2. Our auction has always announced the age verified calves but I haven't been there this fall.

[kato]

This is in Manitoba, so doesn't exactly apply, but our local auction tried a presort where they made up two pens of calves, one age verified, and one not, that would normally be put into one generic pen. The price difference was either zero, or maybe as much as one cent, but no more.

They don't intend to do it again. They say it's not worth the extra work. If they had a totally age verified presort it would not be that much extra, but they don't seem to be interested.

In the meantime, we're planning on buying feeders this fall, and are really worried about being stuck with them, or selling at a steep discount if they aren't verified.

Also, with out own calves, we have a choice to sell as generic on the Tuesday presort, or sell as age verified on Thursday, when the sales are usually smaller, and don't pay as well. The other options are a different mart, or sale from the yard.

Sometimes I wonder about this lack of interest in age verification from the auction mart. Am I just thinking like a conspiracy theorist when I wonder if the mart really doesn't want the buyer to know where the cattle came from in case they decide in the future to skip the middleman and buy direct?

[grassfarmer]

Sean, like you we've done the whole job since the outset - provided the auctioneer with the certificates,also printed note detailing the age verification status of the calves also their health program etc. The auctioneer has always been happy to read it out and gone on to sell our calves for close to, if not the highest prices of the day. We've been paid for our efforts every time - In contrast I wonder how many guys claim they quit age verifying because the marketplace wasn't paying them for it even bothered to notify the auctioneer? I know in my local auction you could watch 4 or 5 hours of selling last year and maybe hear two other lots given out as either age verified or on a health program.

I think as far as presorts go the only sensible way is to have an age verified sale one week and non age verified the next week. It won't be an issue in Alberta next year in any case.

Per, you say your local auction always announced age verified calves - did they actively do this or only if the consigners asked?I'd like to see the auction companies take on more of a lead role here.
I just think this is maybe a case where someone other than cow/calf producers should have stepped up to the plate. The auction marts might have seen this coming and have had since June to think about it - why not put up notices around their offices or in their adverts asking for producers to provide age verification information?

I'll tell you the one thing that concerns me in this - if a significant discount is put on cattle that are not age verified it opens up opportunities for fraud. For a $100 discount you would get a few guys prepared to cut out the tags, insert their own and age verify them. Whats to stop them? Oh yeah! the inspections that will be put in place. From the UK experience I can tell you the inspectors/inspections are always about 3 years behind the ball in detecting what is going on - by the time they cotton on the fraudster is onto the next scheme.