Last year’s inaugural Continental Connection Bull Sale in Quesnel was a great success, and while it will look quite different this year due to COVID-19, the second annual sale is going ahead Friday, April 3.
The 2020 Continental Connection Bull Sale features more than 35 yearling and two-year-old purebred Limousin and Simmental bulls. Interested buyers have been touring the bulls privately at Pinnacle View Limousin and KRS Simmentals leading up to the sale, and while last year’s event was meant as much as an agricultural gathering for the community as a sale, this year’s sale will be mostly online. Bulls will be on-site at Pinnacle View Limousin at 4344 Highway 97 South, and a smaller number of people can still visit the farm on sale day, but the sale will be done online through video.
Co-organizer Erin Kishkan of Pinnacle View Limousin says there has been quite a bit of interest in this year’s sale, even with all the uncertainty around it, and several people have come through for private tours.
“We practised our social distancing and offered a one-on-one experience for some of the buyers, which was great because, obviously, as a bull buyer, you want to see the bulls in person, and we aren’t able to host everybody on sale day, unfortunately, so that gave people the opportunity to see them with their own eyes, and of course, we can offer the online viewing and bidding option so they can buy from the comfort of their own home knowing they have seen the bulls,” she said. “The interest has been strong, and we’re confident hopefully it will go as planned. There are several bull sales that have had to modify their attendance and go mostly with the online option, and they’ve all still been quite successful, so we’re optimistic ours will follow suit.”
Interested bull buyers register online through VJV Auctions, and then on Friday, April 3 at 2 p.m., pre-taped videos of the bulls will be playing, and the auctioneer will be live. When you see a bull at a price you like, you click “bid,” and Kishkan says it is very similar to the Ritchie Bros. online system.
For Kishkan, two feature bulls from Pinnacle View Limousin in this year’s sale are Lot 2 (Pinnacle’s Grand Canyon 12G) and Lot 20 (Pinnacle’s Greek God 1G), who were both part of the farm’s show string in 2019.
“We’re pretty happy with how these bulls are developing,” she said. “They’re just a small sampling of what we can offer, but we’re pretty proud of the whole pen, really.”
Kishkan and Reanne Sanford of KRS Simmentals organized the first bull sale last year as a way to market their genetics, but also to bring the agricultural community together at a new event, and Kishkan says it went really well.
“Last year was excellent,” she said. “It exceeded our expectations as far as participation and support from the community goes; we were really happy to host the agriculture community. It was the first event of its type in Quesnel, and I think it went over really well. People seemed to respond to it very nicely. Obviously, we host the sale to market our genetics to our bull sale clients, but last year, we really just wanted to invite the agriculture community to come together at an event and shake hands and have an opportunity to see each other and socialize in an agriculture-related situation, and we think last year accomplished that and so much more.”
This year is Pinnacle View’s 30th anniversary as Limousine breeders, and they feel the bulls being offered in this year’s sale fit today’s market demands.
“We feel there is a bull to fit every operation,” Kishkan writes in the sale catalogue. “Whether it’s a heifer bull, power bull, one for your purebred operation or one for your commercial operation, there is a bull for you. We are very proud of the fact that many of these bulls have been sired by bulls raised right here on our farm.”
KRS Simmentals on Blackwater Road is providing four bulls for the sale, and Sanford says she is really proud of the program they represent.
“Our family breeds both commercial and purebred cattle, so we strive to produce bulls that perform in the range conditions here and that would work well in any program,” she writes in the sale catalogue.
The Continental Connection Bull Sale will take place Friday, April 3, with the video sale starting at 2 p.m. The bulls will be on-site at Pinnacle View Limousin. Kishkan says they are hoping to have the auctioneer on-site as well, but it has been difficult to get commercial flights, so the auctioneer may be remote but will still be live.
To arrange a private viewing of the bulls ahead of sale day, call Erin at 250-991-6654 or Reanne at 250-249-5332 (home) or 250-991-9496 (cellphone).
Videos of the bulls can be found online by searching 2020 Continental Connection Bull Sale on YouTube.
Visit vjvauction.com to register for online bidding. If you are having any trouble setting up your account, call Craig at VJV at 403-783-1453.
READ MORE: Inaugural Continental Connection Bull Sale coming up Saturday
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