rockridgecattle:
Thank you for your condolences. I did not post my story to the board to garner sympathy, however. I did not mean to come across as whining about the outcome, just merely wanted to give my story of trying to build a herd through buying at a sale barn as an example of some of the difficulties.
In response to your specific notes:
1. I did not send them to the sale barn. I sold them to the man who sold them to me through the sale barn who then, I must assume, took them back to the sale barn. The disease is not passed through the air or water as I understand it. However, your point that if he took them to the barn it contaminated the barn is a good one. I agree. But seeing as how that is the barn I bought them from, that is the barn that was already contaminated, and it is not my barn, I don't see how that concerns me. If he doesn't care, far be it from me to bother myself with his problems. (but note that since he doesn't mind, I won't be buying cattle there anymore)
2. Yes the previous owner bought them. If he commingled them with his other cows, that was his choice and I would assume his other cows were already exposed. Again, not my business.
3. No guarantee and in fact I believe he did know they were exposed when I bought them. I suppose he could have unloaded them on some other poor unsuspecting shmuck (by that I assume you mean to say that I was the first shmuck - but no offense taken). I only know what he said he was going to do. I have enough trouble minding my own business without minding his as well.
Were the cows marked for culling? I don't know - they weren't when I bought them. I wasn't there when (if) they were sold. Why the heck did I not send them direct to slaughter? I would have if I had the opportunity to do so. I don't know anything about selling directly to the slaughter business. It just seemed much easier to call where they came from and ship them out that way.
So, I can't seem to figure out what your problem is. If I had sold them to a farmer as a set of working cows without telling him they had been exposed, that would have been bad. If I had hauled them off to another market and ran them through the ring without so much as a whisper of what was going on, that would have been bad. Even if I had taken them back to that barn and ran them through without having them announce what the deal was, that would have been bad. I didn't do any of that. The man who gave me the problem graciously took the problem off my hands. For that I am lucky.
Please note, however, that I'm not blaming the guy who sold his sick cattle at the auction barn and from whom I bought the cattle. Sale barns are for selling all kinds of marketable livestock. These cows were marketable. (I would probably argue that they shouldn't be, however.) My point is exactly that. Auctions are "buyer beware" markets. When you buy at a sale barn, you are taking a chance on getting someone elses problems and taking it home with you. I knew that when I bought the cattle, took the gamble, and it didn't work out the way I wanted it to. Fortunately for me, original seller bought them back eliminating the dilemma of what I was to do with them.
