Alberta cull cow program

[Cedar]

raymondb:

"What should the value of a cull cow be??

Perhaps we should be able to depreciate her value as we do with machinery?"

Or...perhaps we should be able to appreciate her, unlike we do with machinery!!! After all, when Mr. John Deere meets Mrs. John Deere, they do not make many little Junior John Deeres, who will then keep on chuggin' along for many years and all continuing to produce more long-lived John Deeres.

In the future beef industry we are facing, longevity will be key, don't you think?

Of course, this is all "outside the box" of government assistance! This is making changes we can count on!

[cowman]

boone: I think we're pretty well maxxed out on cows in Alberta. In fact it seems like we shipped about half of them to Saskatchewan and Manitoba last year when the drought was bad. One of the things I don't like about this Alberta plan is it balkanizes the western industry again and moves cattle where they shouldn't be. Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba are where expansion should be happening. The federal government blew it again!
Cedar: You sort of lost me there! Were you talking about some sort of tax strategy?

[cowman]

So how does this Alberta program work on bulls? Is a bull part of the 8% total cull or what? So if you have 96 cows and four bulls you can cull all the bulls and four cows bringing them up to the "historical average"? Or claim $336 on four bulls and $180 on four cows if you take the cash payout?
Also how do they determine the historical average? And one more question...They say they will pay the $180/cow on animals over 30 months UNLESS she has had a calf. If your heifers are going to calve early would it make sense to delay for a couple of months before applying?

[k-way]

I have 60 cows, 8% of my herd is 4.8 cows by $180 is $864. Cannot pay many bills with that, its a joke. It might keep the light on for a couple of months.

[cowman]

Well $864 isn't very much but its better than nothing. Our Sask. and Man. counterparts won't be getting even that.
The sad part is now the government can say well we did our part and wash their hands of us! When in reality we needed a strong federal government to step in with a strong National program?
This BSE problem isn't going to be solved overnight! If everything returned to normal tommorrow we'll still be feeling the effects for a long time! You can't take that much money out of an industry and expect things to bouce right back. Especially an industry that works on such a narrow profit margin at the best of times?

[grassmarketeer]

cowman and grassfarmer, I appreciated your comments. Maybe I'll have some of my own when I start filling out the forms tomorrow. Is the feds form available yet?