Auction Barn practices

[Craig Miller]

If they dont tag your calf how do you know youre getting paid for your calf

 

[Ojp6]

Some of the sales will put some of the best colored calves in with the blacks. In general pink nose chars don't get put in any of the #1 pens. They might even grade a bunch of chromed up calves together rather than selling them as singles if they get enough of a similar size and if there's five or more it will likely bring there value up a ways.

 

[Ojp6]

If they dont tag your calf how do you know youre getting paid for your calf

At graded sales you know which pen your calf goes in as soon as it unloads and you know the weight so you can figure out what you should be getting paid. At most of the weigh out sales that don't sell all singles they keep everybodies calves separate from the time they are unloaded until they go through the sale so they sell all of yours together and will usually announce you name when they start selling yours.

 

[John SD]

The grading process works well for a lot of people because you will rarely get screwed at the barn if you get your calves in the graded pen and most buyers in the east especially would rather buy 100 at a time instead of 2 or 3 so they know they will be able to make a load.

Would you, or someone, please explain the grading? I've seen it mentioned several times like everyone just automatically understands it, but I for one don't. And when cattle are sold in large groups, how does the bidding work? I assume they don't run them all through the ring.

I don't understand the grading thing either. Most sale rings here are built to hold 100 - 500 lb calves in the ring, so most rancher's consignments will fit in the ring at one time. If the consignor has more calves in one single cut than that, they turn that bunch loose out the other end and let more in for buyers to see. When the bidding starts, the top bidder has option to buy the whole lot of inside and outside cattle. If not, anyone else has option to buy whatever number calves they need gate cut out of what is left over at the same price :idea:

 

[John SD]

If they dont tag your calf how do you know youre getting paid for your calf

At graded sales you know which pen your calf goes in as soon as it unloads and you know the weight so you can figure out what you should be getting paid. At most of the weigh out sales that don't sell all singles they keep everybodies calves separate from the time they are unloaded until they go through the sale so they sell all of yours together and will usually announce you name when they start selling yours.

Weigh-ups are back tagged because they are penned with other weigh-ups and sold individually for each owner.

Calve are not back tagged because they are penned as a group by owner. Calves are sorted by sex/weight/color as they come out of the pen to go to the ring, unless they have been sorted already before leaving the ranch.

 

[LauraleesFarm]

Grrrr retyping reply. Again.

I am in East Texas.

ALL cattle are tagged in the trailer before unloading. You can pay extra for females to be preg checked on site and they also mouth the age. Your cattle will be mixed with other cattle of similar type/age/sex, etc..

Horned cattle are generally together and polled together. Not always but usually. Bulls separated to private stalls unless definitely for slaughter.

If you ask for preg check they will mark the month pregnant on the hip and the mouth age on the shoulder. This is true for most of the barns I visit. However, Emory marks them backwards.

Pregnancy is marked in months, not trimesters or periods. So its 0-9. If there is an X on the hip for pregnancy status then something is wrong/missing/not breedable.

Age is marked 1-8 and rarely anything over that will be numbered. It will then go SS, X for brokemouth, and 0 for no mouth. Or could use H for heifer.

They run them thru one at a time. Occasionally a small set will be presented and high bidder can take all or choice. But most of them are one at a time. Calves, and everything.

Cattle are weighed AFTER the bidding ends and this flashes on the screen.

The other day at Emory a guy won the bid on a cow and then he stopped the auctioneer and said he wanted the next highest bidder to get the animal. I guess buyers remorse set in. This made the room get real quiet. Auctioneer told him if he won the bid he had to pay for it. Never saw anyone that stupid before. I hope he was embarrassed.

 

[kenny thomas]

So to any of you that visit barns where the calves are weighed after they sell, what if I had an order for calves that for whatever reason must no weigh over 500lb. Wih a group or even a single calf how would I be assured the calves would not weigh 510. That seems picky but some people buy them that way.

 

[BC]

So to any of you that visit barns where the calves are weighed after they sell, what if I had an order for calves that for whatever reason must no weigh over 500lb. Wih a group or even a single calf how would I be assured the calves would not weigh 510. That seems picky but some people buy them that way.

Kenny, you get good a guessing weights or hope you have another order you can move them to. I actually have a Charolais cow in my pasture that I bought on a grazing heifer order that was not to weigh over 600 lbs. She weighed and was a cut. I just bought some heifers to match her for myself to turn out. When I got ready to ship about 5 months later, she was bagging up. She became a cut for the second time. I am about to wean her 5th calf. She calves every 10 1/2 months. I wish all my mistakes turned out that well.

 

[kenny thomas]

So to any of you that visit barns where the calves are weighed after they sell, what if I had an order for calves that for whatever reason must no weigh over 500lb. Wih a group or even a single calf how would I be assured the calves would not weigh 510. That seems picky but some people buy them that way.

Kenny, you get good a guessing weights or hope you have another order you can move them to. I actually have a Charolais cow in my pasture that I bought on a grazing heifer order that was not to weigh over 600 lbs. She weighed and was a cut. I just bought some heifers to match her for myself to turn out. When I got ready to ship about 5 months later, she was bagging up. She became a cut for the second time. I am about to wean her 5th calf. She calves every 10 1/2 months. I wish all my mistakes turned out that well.

I am pretty good but few people can guess a group within 25 lb much less 10 lb. That is why load lots usually sell with a slide. Why not just have the scales before they enter the ring or as most are here the ring is the scale and there is no guessing.

 

[Ojp6]

So to any of you that visit barns where the calves are weighed after they sell, what if I had an order for calves that for whatever reason must no weigh over 500lb. Wih a group or even a single calf how would I be assured the calves would not weigh 510. That seems picky but some people buy them that way.

I guess you just have to count on your guessing ability. I've bought at one barn like that several times and you just have to be really good at guessing weights. I was buying heifers that were supposed to weigh 500 and I got one that only weigh 470 and a couple that weighed 510 and some in between but I bid on one that I would have swore didn't weigh over 500 that weighed 550. The sale was in Huntingdon TN and one of the guys in the ring that bought a bunch was really good at guessing. He could usually tell you within ten pounds of what they were gonna weigh before they hit the scale. The only time they weighed them before they sold them is when they sold 5 or more at a time.

 

[Ojp6]

I could never figure out why they want you to have to guess when they could just run them through the opposite direction and weigh them first.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

I could never figure out why they want you to have to guess when they could just run them through the opposite direction and weigh them first.

Right, I don't see why they would want to run the sale that way. I don't like the idea myself.

 

[Ojp6]

I could never figure out why they want you to have to guess when they could just run them through the opposite direction and weigh them first.

Right, I don't see why they would want to run the sale that way. I don't like the idea myself.

From what I could tell it just makes it harder for the average farmer who is buying and is not as good at guessing weights.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

I could never figure out why they want you to have to guess when they could just run them through the opposite direction and weigh them first.

Right, I don't see why they would want to run the sale that way. I don't like the idea myself.

From what I could tell it just makes it harder for the average farmer who is buying and is not as good at guessing weights.

I know alot of people like that who would have a very hard time at it, most would probably just not try to buy at a sale like that.

 

[bird dog]

I go to a few sales that do it both ways. Doesn't seem to matter much on calves because most of the buyers are pretty sharp and look for a range of say 50 lbs. Example he has an order for 500 lb steers. He looks for the range of 475 to 525.
Where I have really seen a difference is in light weight bred heifers. People are scared of them if they weigh under 750 so if they are weighed before they come in the ring, those go off cheaper than they would at a sale that weighs after the ring.
I don't know of any sale barn around here that uses the ring for their scales. About half the barns weigh before, half weigh after. Everyone prefers the weigh before type sale barns but a lot of these old barns would have to do some major renovation to change and with less cattle to sell every year, it ain't going to happen.

 

[talltimber]

The two closest barns to me, one weighs up before, one weighs in the ring. Either one is fine. It's been a long time ago, but remember one being a weigh after.

Calves are sold here by owner, no co-mingling on sale day that I'm aware of, officially. There may be some guys bringing calves the same day and selling together, but I'd say that was not common. Standard is to sort according to owner. Say a load of fifteen, cut heifers and steers, then cut to size if necessary. You wouldn't want to buy a set of four steers, two 500 and two 350, and pay a 425 price on the 500's or receive a 425 price on the 350s. They don't match anyway, so it doesn't really help anyone.

I have heard rumor of a Joplin hub not far from me and I don't know how they do it there. These guys may be pooling to send out there. You'd have to have your individual weights to do that though and unless they get them out there a day or three in advance I'd say that would make for some slow progress when you sell in the thousands every week.

 

[LauraleesFarm]

If you think about it, the practice of requiring the bidder to guestimate the weight of the cattle is probably intended to separate the men from the boys. So to speak.

Only the professional bidders will feel comfortable taking that risk.

 

[dieselbeef]

If you think about it, the practice of requiring the bidder to guestimate the weight of the cattle is probably intended to separate the men from the boys. So to speak.

Only the professional bidders will feel comfortable taking that risk.

good way to keep the prices down too. ring is the scale here. every calf even if you bring 50 goes thru alone but under a lot number
if they weigh after how can you know what to bid unless money is no object. at todays prices being off by 50-75 lbs could make a good deal bad

we almost always have the same buyers at our barn either day,,,mon or weds

 

[js1234]

barns here in the west are if i were guessing, 70% the ring is the scale, 30% weighed after they sell. the barns that still operate that way will usually check weigh a large draft (20 head or more) before selling it or the first draft of a different class (switching from yearling steers to yearling heifers as an example).barns out here also dont sell singles until the end of the sale typically but dont sell multiple owners together either. a typical sale would go like this: steer calf pen lots best to worst and smallest to biggest, heifer calf pen lots best to worst and smallest to biggest, yearling steer pen lots the same way then yearling heifer pen lots the same way then work through all the singles in the same order. the best to worst and smallest to biggest is where being a yard that knows how to market and sort cattle comes into play. while its not set in stone, typically even though they work through a class of cattle smallest to biggest, a really good for kind pen lot of 600lbs. steer calves will sell before a plain pen lot of 450lbs. steer calves in most instances. again, none of this is set in stone but the rough outline of how most of larger barns West of the Rockies run.

 

[kenny thomas]

If you think about it, the practice of requiring the bidder to guestimate the weight of the cattle is probably intended to separate the men from the boys. So to speak.

Only the professional bidders will feel comfortable taking that risk.

And what does it take to be a professional? If I need a load of steers weighing 490 and the buyer is not willing to pay for calves weighing over 500 what would I do with those if the load weighed 505. At todays prices that is about $45 a head. At 99 head to the load and $45 head difference in price thats $4455 per load that I can't just not pay for. A professional will buy on a slide if he does not have a weight. I challenge anyone here to guess a 50,000 load within 10 lb per head.