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CANADIAN WESTERN AGRIBITION | CATTLE
BY MICHAEL RAINE
SASKATOON NEWSROOM
REGINA — Ray Kneeland’s chosen
profession was actually his second
choice.
“I wanted to be a cowboy. Growing
up in rural Alberta in the ’50s, it
wasn’t all that unusual. But I got married
and I figured out that I needed to
make a living, too. So I got into trimming
hoofs.”
Kneeland started trimming cattle
hoofs in 1969 and is now past his 70th
birthday, but remains active in his
work.
More than 50 purebred cattle producers
had Kneeland trimming their
bull’s hoofs at Canadian Western
Agribition held in Regina Nov. 19-24.
“I’m not sure it pays for me to do it at
the show, but I know so many folks
here,” he said.
“This is my community and they
count on me being here. I count on
them. They’re why I come.”
Kneeland grew up near Stettler,
Alta., where his parents had cattle,
and wanted to be involved in the beef
industry from the time he was young.
He worked for ranchers in the cattle
country of the Big Muddy near
Bengough, Sask., for five summers
and spent his winters in the north
working on seismic crews.
“I was going to settle down and
become a welder. After six weeks on
the job, after trade school, I knew I
wasn’t going to be a welder,” he said.
Kneeland started out in 1969 with
a standard capacity tipping table,
but he soon began to build sturdier
models when producers began
importing large continental cattle in
the early 1970s.
“When you’re doing 6,000 or 7,000
cattle a year, you can’t be messing
around with machines that might
break or let you down,” he said.
After a couple of attempts, the third
NEWS
Ray Kneeland has been keeping animals’ hoofs trim and clean for more than 40 years. | MICHAEL RAINE PHOTO
model proved lucky.
“So in ’72 I quick-like built a third
one, heavier yet and taller, so I
wouldn’t be bending all the time and
hurting my back.”
He still uses that table today.
Kneeland bought a place near Martensville,
north of Saskatoon, in the
1980s. He found he could make a
“pretty good living being a cowboy,”
working with dairy cattle and travelling
throughout Saskatchewan trimming
purebred beef animals.
“The dairy cattle used to get outside
more than they do now and so you
didn’t see too many lame animals,”
THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | DECEMBER 13, 2012
Animals benefit from professional pedicure session
Pioneer in the trade |
Hoof trimmer keeps
cattle on solid footing
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he said. “There was always some
trimming. Now they pretty much all
get trimmed twice a year. But I don’t
do too many of them anymore.”
Kneeland has taken on a couple of
younger trimmers, who now have
their own businesses, handling the
dairy industry as well as the purebred
work that Kneeland is slowly giving
up while he and wife Noreen pull
back to enjoy more leisure and community
time.
The couple host a pair of provincial
high school rodeos on their farm
near Martensville and run trail rides
through the warmer months.
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Proceeds from those events are
donated to charity.
Kneeland also invests time raising
money for Saskatchewan’s Kinsmen’s
Telemiracle Foundation and he’s
known for his no-nonsense manner
of involving other cattle industry folks
in his charitable activities.
“Heck, during Agribition I managed
to sell $1,000 worth of tickets for
a draw on a fuel card and … $1,000 in
chocolate almonds,” he said.
“It’s part of knowing a bunch of
folks and leveraging that to do some
good for those that got less of a good
shake at life than I did.”
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