33 The Business of Prairie Agriculture Better Farming | November/December 2023 Chay Anderson is a fifth-generation cattle rancher from southern Saskatchewan who is balancing ranching with his family and staying involved in the industry. Chay farms with his parents, Lloyd and Nyla Anderson, and has two brothers who also work on the farm part-time. Chay has been full-time on the farm since his time at university. “After high school, I went to university and got a degree in agribusiness at University of Saskatchewan,” says Chay. “There were three summers that I worked away from the farm – one with Monsanto, and two as an agronomist with Syngenta – and that was the extent of my working away.” The Anderson family runs approximately 500 commercial cow-calf pairs, background their own calves, and rear their own yearlings on their ranch near Grasslands National Park. They also grow enough crops to feed their cattle, with some extra for cash-crop in good years. “We raise primarily Black Angus and sprinkle of Hereford. Our cow herd is a little on the small stature side, but that’s kind of our preference being on grass,” says Chay about the ranch’s herd genetics. “They do well and produce a good calf every year, and the baldy traits from the Hereford seem to add a little size.” The family aims to calve their cows on pasture, with a target start date of mid-April to avoid the worst of the bad spring weather. “We are in an area with a lot of rolling hills,” says Chay. “There are a lot of natural barriers from the elements, and calving on pasture saves us infrastructure in yards.” With the rolling terrain of their pastures, Chay says that they do most of their cattle work on horses. This includes moving the herd 12 miles down the road to new pastures. In recent years, drought has been changing pasture availability in the Prairies. After five years of drought in the region, Chay says that the ranch’s practice of backgrounding calves is becoming more unique among beef producers in the area. “We keep our calves overwinter and feed them. Typically, we feed about 1,000 calves over the winter. “In the spring, we sell non-replacement heifers, and we keep the steers and grass them over the summer. We sell them at 18 months of age as grassers. “We’ve had some bad drought years. It’s quite costly to feed cattle, and calves are like teenagers, so come winter they are eating a lot. “Our yearling game hasn’t been unique but it’s becoming that, and I think it’s because of drought. I was locally quoted for feed by one person at 10.5 cents per pound. That’s not even in your yard. Feed is getting quite expensive.” While staying busy on the farm, Chay also finds time to be involved on boards within Saskatchewan’s beef industry. “I’m the finance chair for Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association and I’m also with a group called SODCAP (South of the Divide Conservation Action Program),” says Chay. “Their focus is on conservation of native grass prairies and the species in it, and in that focus, they want to keep ranchers on the Prairies. They don’t want other groups coming in and they want ranchers to keep the land, so they look for money and projects to feasibly protect the ground.” Chay shares that it is valuable to him to sit on these boards, which look to conserve the native Prairie grasslands which play a large role in their pasture program. “It’s nice to sit at the table and look at problems and see options coming in and discuss why things haven’t been tried and so forth,” he says. As Chay stays involved in the industry and continues to work with his family, he hopes to find ways to grow his herd while managing feed production on the ranch to reduce costs. UP CLOSE Chay and fiancée Mindy Hockley. Anderson Family photo BALANCING FARMING & INDUSTRY WORK ‘It is about give & take and no one can do it by themselves.’ By Emily Croft
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