Grunthal Livestock Auction Mart, which was built in the early 1970's, is under new ownership.
Manager Harold Unrau is part of the new ownership group and explained some of recent changes that have taken place.
"We've totally gutted the whole ring area and we've put a scale in the ring and changed our stands and we've changed our sorting area to make it a lot more stress-free environment for the cattle. Easier sorting, easier selling, and the cattle want to go where we want them to go now just by the renovations we've made."
Unrau says they've also improved how they do business.
"We have the option of pre-sorting and pre-weighing your cattle now, so if you don't want to risk having a lot of shrink you can bring them in, we'll sort them...we'll weigh them with a percentage of shrink...and we'll put them back on feed so the cattle are on feed all time and it's a lot less stress on the animal."
Unrau notes the fall run started about a month earlier than normal this year, which has resulted in lighter weights overall.
Grunthal Livestock Auction Mart serves roughly 75 per cent of southern Manitoba and handles about 25,000 animals per year.
Source : Steinbachonline