By the 1950s, finishing cattle on the range had become both impractical and uneconomic. Ranchers were sending calves east to the growing feedlot industry there, and at the same time, prairie farmers were shipping grain east to provide that same industry with feed for those western calves. A small group of Alberta business men saw both the problem and a potential solution - the creation of a custom cattle feeding industry in the west. One of them, Eion Chisholm, already had some experience of small-scale feeding and had toured feedlot operations in the USA, and it was largely his vision of emulating these feedlots in southern Alberta that led to the creation of Western Feedlots Ltd's business model - to provide compact custom feeding facilities for large numbers of cattle. The feed was grown close by; the calves were reared close by; why ship both to Ontario when the work could be done locally and the benefits retained?more...See more text
