Frozen embryos worth more after Ag Ex win

A Westman cow’s win at Ag Ex has increased the value of her embryos that will go up for auction next month and provide revenue for her farm in Miami, Man.

Sparrows Mirabelle 385M, from Steppler Farms in Miami, won the Grand Champion Charolais Female 2026 in Brandon’s Ag Ex at the end of last month. In an interview with the Sun, the owner said the victory serves a primary purpose.

“It just adds to her resume of why she’s important in the industry, and then that will increase sale demand,” Andre Steppler said. “It has already.”

He judged that the value of the Mirabelle’s genetics have increased following the victory based on phone calls and emails asking about her.

The right to her embryos are going to be sold at a live auction in December, before the embryos are produced and frozen for transport, according to Steppler.

“They’re frozen in nitrogen, and then we sell them, and we ship them across Canada in liquid nitrogen tanks,” he said. “It’s virtually like that Jurassic Park episode where the guy pulls out the embryos of the dinosaurs, like it’s the same thing.”

He has previously sold embryos internationally, to Australia and the United States, as well as to both coasts of Canada.

The strategy extracts an embryo, which is formed when sperm fertilizes an egg, and plants it into other female cattles, allowing the same mother to pass on her genetics to more than one per year through several pregnant females.

Steppler is a third generation beef producer. He farms with his wife and three kids, keeping Charolais, Black Angus and Simmental purebred cattle with a herd of 650.

The victory at Ag Ex identifies Mirabelle as a quality source of purebred genetics, allowing her to stand out for customers looking to increase their herd, he said.

“It virtually just gave us the accreditation that we have the type of breeding stock that is elite within the breeding world of the purebred world,” Steppler said.

He estimates the value of Mirabelle’s embryos to sit between $3,000 and $3,500.

The first-place prize also granted Mirabelle 385M entry to the Canadian Western Agribition competition that is upcoming in November in Regina. Stepller said that event is like the “Stanley Cup finals” for producers.

The embryos would roughly double in value with a victory in that competition, he said, and pointed to reports that last year’s winner had sold embryos for roughly $8,500 each.

A different Ag Ex winning cow from a separate farm in Minnedosa will also be bred using the embryonic reproductive strategy — but not in the same way, owners said.

Jake Rawluk and Laura Horner, the owners of Horner Cattle Company out of Minnedosa, won the Grand Champion Female at the Supreme Breed Extravaganza with their Simmental cow Roseview Maggie 3M.

The two said they will be using the same embryo-extracting reproductive strategy — called “flushing” — to reproduce their winning cow. But they will not be selling the embryos; they will keep the embryos for themselves.

“We want to duplicate what she looks like,” Rawluk said. “That’s the consistency that we want to replicate.”

Benefits can include genetics that increase longevity of the animal, as well as feet and bone structure.

The couple will be using the embryonic reproductive approach to improve the consistency of their herd, they said.

Consistency increases the value of the herd and builds brand reputation, Horner said. The more consistent the herd, the more confidence buyers have that they are getting a quality animal, and can make purchases expecting a certain calibre.

Rawluk described how uniformity can increase the appeal of a volume of cattle at auction marts.

“The guys buying them, they want to see the most consistent groups,” he said. “They want to see all the same colour, or the same type and kind, in terms of being structurally built the same, the same hair coat. In terms of the steer, the same hip structure and the muscle mass.”

They said that events like Ag Ex, especially when they come with a victory, are significant to their brand and reputation in the industry.

“With this supreme champion female, we’ve already put in embryos off of her for the next year, like we’ve kind of known for a while that she was pretty special,” Horner said. “Just getting her out and about like this kind of confirms … what we’re pushing to achieve and the type of cattle we’re trying to raise, and to get them in front of others who would maybe benefit from purchasing our genetics.”

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com