Brian Good, always a promoter of beef and the Angus breed, had decided sometimes you need to step out in a different direction.
[RELATED] Brian Good, Angus fieldman, passes
As the story goes, Nate Marin and Brian, while on their way to the Brandon bull sale, stopped at a local auction which happened to be selling chickens. There they ran into Glen Osborne of Three Star Simmentals. He was raising a few chickens with top-end genetics and had brought in three purebred chickens from Ontario to sell that day. Brian and Nate asked what they were worth. Glen said $100 for all three. Lo and behold, when the air cleared and bidding was done, they owned three chickens priced at — you guessed it — $100, even though the next bidder was not even close.
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Looking to get their investment back, Brian hatched a plan to sell shares and take the chickens to the chicken jackpot at the Vermilion Fair. Nate had one job and that was to look after the chickens. That was a short-lived responsibility as the resident farm cat proceeded to make short work of three pedigree chickens. Undeterred — or maybe Nate “forgot” to tell him — Brian soldiered on, selling shares to Angus breeders throughout the industry for an undisclosed amount of money. From what I heard, it was enough.
That year at Agribition, at the first annual shareholders meeting of the Angus Chicken Consortium held at the Justamere Farms stall, one shareholder asked, “How are the chickens doing?” while munching on a chicken leg from the nearby buckets of KFC and washing it down with Royal Red wine. Said shareholder was told, “You’re eating them.” That turned out to be the one and only shareholder meeting they had, but nobody seemed to mind.
In the organizers’ minds, this should have been the end of it. But as can happen when a group of cowboys get together after a few beverages, these chicken shareholders said, “Let’s do it again. Here’s some money, I’m in.” That was a great idea except there was one problem — no chickens. That problem was solved when a few calls were made, and top-shelf pedigree chickens were lined up in Ontario to head out to Saskatchewan.
This then raised another dilemma as to how to get them out West without somebody making a special trip to Ontario to pick them up. Well-known livestock hauler HS Knill Transport came to the rescue. Special crates were built with all the extras, water included, and one load of chickens made their way West at no cost, courtesy of HS Knill.
Wondering what to do now, Brian and the shareholders decided that this would be a good time to pay it forward. About this time Bob and Gail Switzer of Sandy Bar Angus stepped up along with son Beau and daughter-in-law Ashley and chickens became a part of the Short Grass Bull Sale for the next number of years. Proceeds from the many chickens involved went to support charities and causes across Canada. When speaking with Bob at the Southwest Angus Tour recently in Saskatchewan, he said that more than $250,000 was raised over the years in support of people needing a hand up in life. A huge shout-out to everybody who was involved in the chicken charities as it couldn’t have been done without you.
Starting with a fun idea and three little chickens, this is one more story of Brian Good making a huge difference in many people’s lives.
The beef industry has lost a giant of a man. Brian, we will miss you!
