A surprise addition to one of the top dairy cattle sales of the year brought $1 million for a cow bred in Ontario.
The International Intrigue sale was held July 2 at Butlerview farm in Chebanse, Ill. The sale was hosted by Butlerview and Blondin, a Quebec-based dairy genetics company.
GenoSource, a large dairy farm and dairy genetics supplier based in Iowa purchased Olortine Avenger Design, a cow bred by Corey Martin near Wallenstein, Ont.
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Avenger Design has taken a long route to Illinois and now on to Iowa, through multiple owners, as often happens with superstar Holstein cows. She was born in 2021 and was eventually housed in Saskatchewan and owned by R&F Livestock Inc., of Cudworth, Sask. and Walker Dairy Inc., of Aylmer, Ont. Pierre Boulet, of Montmagny, Que. has also held an ownership stake. She was purchased by Butlerview this spring.
When GenoSource made a large offer for the cow at the time of the International Intrigue sale on July 2, 2025, it was decided to put Design into the sale to see if there was other interest. GenoSource’s U.S.$1 million bid held.
Avenger Design, classified VG89 as a two-year-old, is expected to be one of the elite show cows of the next few years, having already won intermediate champion at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in 2024 and Grand Champion at the Western Dairy Expo show in April.
The sale had an average of more than U.S.$25,000 per animal on 171 lots and grossed more than U.S.$4.3 million. Other high sellers included Jacobs Lambda Baz Ex-92, selling for U.S.$320,000, Walnutlawn Bullseye Sadie VG87 for $162,000 and Famipage Legend Barabas VG89 for $120,00. The top Jersey sold was Karnation Video Melisandre VG89 for $120,000.
All of the top-five sellers were bred in Canada, which shows that U.S.-Canada tension and the threat of avian influenza in dairy cattle in the United States hasn’t stopped the movement of high-value dairy cattle between the countries.
