Lack of fenceposts

[WRAPper]

We're having a difficult time getting good 4-5" by 6 footers this fall is this province(Alberta) wide or are we just dealing with the wrong supplier.
(3 letters starts with U)

[grassfarmer]

Is that U for useless? I find the new store in Red Deer very poor. The product lines are good, sometimes very price competitive, but the staff have very poor knowledge of what they have and spend too much time hiding out behind desks to actually deal with customers.
I don't know what peoples experiences are with local Co-op stores but I find ours very poor. On the last visit they had 5/8 inch bolts but no nuts for them, no ardox nails between 4 - 6 inch length. Their warehousing supply depot in Saskatoon is alledgedly always to blame for shortages. I went in to buy some quiet wean nose tags last week to find they had one bag (#25) in stock. Couldn't quarantee me to supply them within 7 days if they ordered more in - again product coming from Saskatoon. Couldn't the pony express do better in it's day? The other local Co-ops gave the same story - 1 bag of tags in stock and no idea when more would be delivered. Got the company to mail them direct and they came two days later.
I suspect poor management and lack of incentive to perform affects all these farm supply outfits. Give me Peavey Mart every time.

[WRAPper]

I've been threatening to build a peavy mart locally for about 10 years.
Made some call late today and got the same story from a couple non-coop suppliers as well. Might have to cut down my wife's ornamental's to keep the cows in..

[poorboy]

Tapered fence posts have been in very short supply since early spring, province wide.

All you can get most places is a planed post, where it is the same size from top to bottom. They look like pencils. I want to buy some 6-7" by 8 foot tall sharpened posts for gates and cornerposts and they are just not available.

[mb_rancher]

Our local co-op is usually stocked to the brim but they are having trouble getting stock from the Co-op warehouse. As for fence posts here if you can get them the price has jumped over a dollar a post since spring but most are unavailable.

[ruggb]

The Coop warehouse for hardware is in Calgary. Apparently they just can't get enough staff. Orders are backed up all over Western Canada.
Another casualty of the booming oil business.

[coppertop]

it's not just co-op that is short of staff. Our local Home Hardware is absolutely a nightmare. If you need to pick up anything in the lumber yard at the back its like driving through a maze. I went to pick up pellets for my stove on the weekend and not one member of the yard staff had a clue what they looked like or where they were stored. I backed my pickup around picture windows, ladders, shingles, and lord knows what else until I found the pellets myself, then had to find a kid to load them.
Our UFA store is new and the lack of knowledgeable staff is very evident.

[cswilson]

Guess Alberta is becoming the 'have not' province lol. There's tons of posts just across the border.

[WRAPper]

But those are NDP Posts and they wouldn't work on our conservative cows.....(LOL) Talked to a friend last night and we are bringing some in from Manitoba later in the week.

[cswilson]

They all pound lol.

[greybeard]

I bought some fire-killed rails last feb. from a guy who cuts them. He was pi$$ed because the government boys weren’t going to let them in the burn areas for more than one year after the fire because the may be tramping down new growth. He said it wasn’t worth setting up with access roads and all for only one year.
Post cutters are on the low end of the wage scale and it is one of the dirtiest jobs in the world. I have to wonder where the replacement workers come from in this labor market.
Call Ron at Lehner’s in Price Albert. He’s been selling posts for 30 years and the posts match the description. 306- 763- 4232
Co-op's are enjoying windfall profits due to the refinery in Regina. They don't have to run by the basic rules of buisness as long as high fuel prices prop profitability up.

[coppertop]

I wonder if the fellow from Prince Albert is the same one that usually comes through this area calling on each farm selling posts. cswilson, better hope the pine beetle doesn't get all the timber in Sask., or your post supply may be limited !!!
As far as being a dirty job goes, I can relate to that. The year we bought the farm, my husband, the WELDER, built a dipping vat for fence posts, and between, he, the two boys and I we cut, peeled and treated every !!@@##$$ post for the perimer and all the cross fences on the farm. It was about the second hour on my job of turning posts in the DIPPING VAT that I questioned the sanity of wanting to be a WORKING PARTNER on the farm !!!!

[cswilson]

I'd be pretty leary of the travelling post salesmen. L and M in Glaslyn make good posts and probably have a 20 acre yard full of treated wood right now.

[cowman]

The PA guy used to stop in regularly and I would always buy the whole load! Maybe I was too tough on him as he hasn't called back for a few years! He always seemed to roll in about 11-12 at night!
Personally I always was impressed by the stout posts he sold me.

[cswilson]

There's been alot of guys took by them over the years. I ran the last guy off the place-I was out checking cows and he got yappy about why I didn't ride over to the fence to talk to him. He left with some great new ideas about where to pound his posts lol.