10,000 head feedlot at the Hutterite Colony with Marvin, Southern Alberta.

Marvin is the man in charge of this 10,000 head of cattle feedlot. It is located two hours south of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
The Hutterites are a group of families who live and work together as a community to form a healthy strong agricultural based business. I visited three colonies in Southern Alberta. I saw one place where they made alot of corrugated or box profile sheeting for roofing and another where the colony specialised in heavy duty engineering.
But Marvin's colony focuses on finishing beef for outside cattle producers. Marvin and his two sons take the responsibility for this.
For me, visiting Marvin was especially interesting becuase of his interest in how to handle cattle.

Anybody can handle a few cattle. for us here in ireland most people are comfortable with handling numbers of 100 to 200 cattle. I remember when my father and I had 2000 ewes and the lambs and work that come with that during the year. With those bigger numbers, the handling and systems MUST be efficient in terms of how much time each animals takes. in a 200 ewe system a farmer might not notice the inefficiencies or may just decide that they are not uncomfortable enough to need changing.

In Marvin's case, he cannot afford any inefficiencies. If it takes even 30 seconds extra per animal, that can add up into valuable hours very quickly with his big numbers.

so I loved listening to Marvin talk about why he doesn't like over use of cattle prods or why he has 3 loading chutes etc.

Marvin is a guy I would love to spend more time with. He reminds me of the guys I regard as very smart with cattle and stock. guys like Bryan Neubert, my brother Dermot, Bobby Dalziel, etc.
Marvin is the sort of people that you leave a little bit clever after talking with him, than you were before you met him

I hope you can enjoy this look around and chat, even 5% as much as I did.

thanks Marvin and thanks Jordan for taking me to meet your friend.