Bull Market Flooded

[Richnm]

The New Mexico Angus Association had thier annual sale this week. AI bulls 2 year olds went for about $1,900 average. Prices were so low most bulls went home with their original owner.

 

[Jake]

Angus market is flooded in general with low quality cattle. Whether it's bulls or embryos people have way more than the market wants trying to recoup $$$. People have forgotten how to use a knife and it's showing.

 

[SPH]

Just posted a response in this relate thread: https://cattletoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=122332 Even as dreary as things are right now still seems that people are investing good bulls. Have a customer sending some culls to drop off at JBS soon and the rail prices they were quoted shocked them a bit. Apparently with the hoarding going on with COVID19 people are hoarding ground beef right now so they are willing pay a little more to meet the demand right now.

 

[Till-Hill]

It is a crazy bull market right now. Watched some really good bulls sell for way less than they should have on our state sale a couple weeks ago.

Hereford bulls too? Why?

Well I think it was a combination of things. First off I think our state association may want to consider cataloging about 10 bulls less than they have been lately because seems like the past few years when you get to about the last dozen of bulls on the sale the prices drop off noticeably and the number of people bidding dries up. Or at the very least set a floor on the bulls at say $2500 or something around that because even if you no sale some bulls at least you aren't hurting the local market for those breeders who still sell off the farm because now you have guys that think they can get a quality bull for $2000 or less because they just saw some "sell" at the state sale for as low as $1400. I'm looking at my notes from the sale last month where I made a cutoff line of the last 10 bulls in the order before they even sold because I was curious if the trend would repeat. I'm assuming some wound up as no sales but they went between $1400-$3900 with those 10 bulls averaging $2280 on a sale where 28 bulls sold for an average of $3025 Heck even the 11th and 12th to last bulls to sell only went for $2000 and $1900 so if you factor them into the mix and pull out the 2 bulls that sold for $3900 and $3000 in the last 10 that average dips to $1980 on the "bottom end" last 10 bulls of the sale. They made this a "select" sale years ago which is when the quality and prices got a much needed boost where our regional bred rep visits each breeder and screens all cattle nominated and picks out what he feels is the best (about twice as much is nominated than what actually makes the catalog) which requires a $100 screening fee that goes towards your sale expenses. Then factor in the commissions taken out of your sale and any other costs you have involved with just being there and it's a pricey trip if your animal(s) aren't bringing a price in the upper half of the sale. Granted you also have to look at it as another expense to market your program too but what is it saying if your bull sells or was a no sale because you had a hard time even getting a $2000 bid? Watched a 2 year old bull that sold 6th and I felt easily was one of the top 5 bulls in the sale go for $2900 and that is even after they had to talk him up a bit because they knew someone was going to get a steal if they didn't get the bidding going better.

Two other factors that may have hurt this sale is that in past years the Angus hold their sale just across the hall in another ring at the same time the Herefords sell so there probably was some cross over with buyers that didn't make the trip this time since the Angus decided to do their sale on the 1st Sunday of the expo instead of the last sale day on Thursday like they have for years. I was noticeably less busy in the stalls that morning too than it typically is. The other was the weather as the night before a cold front came in and made things a little slick while also dropping the wind chills to around -20 so that may have kept some people home too. Regardless though I didn't think the quality of the cattle on the sale was lacking, just didn't have enough buyers for the number of consignments so it softened the prices some. All breeds were down significantly this year though. You can browse all breeds sale results here: https://iowabeefexpo.com/2020-results/ and compare them to 2019 here too: https://iowabeefexpo.com/2019-results/ and can probably just keep going back years by changing the year in the URL. The Simmentals did really well this year, 51 bulls averaged $3712 which is up over $350 from their average last year.

I'm still shocked the bulls sold that well on Simmental deal at IBE there wasn't 3 bulls on the sale a commercial producer would buy. Show pedigree no performance no DNA yep still in shock.

 

[elkwc]

I've either attended or bid at several sales over last 6 weeks. Have yet to buy a bull despite bidding up to 6,500 on several. What I've seen and the representatives who attend many of the sales have confirmed is the quality especially with the progeny of AI sires is shallow. Out of 80-90 bulls you will find 10-15 of good quality and the rest should of been cut. I looked at some bulls yesterday at a breeders. A few were bought as high dollar yearlings or fall yearlings. They were all sired by hot AI sires. Without all the white muscle I would of cut all of them. The quality is so low in this area that a good bull causes a bidding war. The quality issue is found in Herefords also. We bought 3 well bred bulls last year and at least one will be sold next week and possibly another.

 

[Stocker Steve]

You are selling them because ?

 

[rancher1868]

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[SPH]

I'm still shocked the bulls sold that well on Simmental deal at IBE there wasn't 3 bulls on the sale a commercial producer would buy. Show pedigree no performance no DNA yep still in shock.

I'm behind catching up to some things these threads these days as my full time job kinda sucks right now with the COVID19 situation and being an IT guy for an essential business that is sending a bunch of people home to work that never have before.

That's an interesting assessment of their sale. Their sale was on Monday so I did not get a chance to see any of their cattle and the Herefords were the only breed left in the barns by Wednesday afternoon. Around here I do think it is in the best interest of the sales at the IBE that there is some kind of cross over in sale dates with the Herefords and Angus and to some extent even the Red Angus as there has been a lot of focus by all 3 breeds to promote cross breeding black and red baldy cattle. Our best customers have been the commercial breeders with black cows that want the benefit of the white face and heterosis you get with using a Hereford bull.

We feel pretty fortunate we got all 3 of our yearling bulls sold off the farm for what we feel were good prices. Even had a guy call the day after we sold our last bull who was disappointed he didn't call sooner. We know some guys with good bulls to sell so we are trying to connect him with them as we'll always help out a fellow breeder as we've been on the receiving end of referral business as well. We were a little worried about delivering 1 bull we sold to a commercial breeder in Wyoming as we sold him before this pandemic occurred but he's being flexible on the delivery date as he doesn't need to turn him out till late June at the earliest as he doesn't want to start calving until sometime in April.

 

[elkwc]

You are selling them because ?

Steve there were a few reasons. We have now sold 2. The market crashed the day we sold them. Neither developed as I had hoped. One evidently is a non aggressive breeder. Had him with a group of cows with a 400 lb smaller Angus bull and all the calves were sired by the Angus bull. I moved him to a pasture where a bull got hurt and did get 6 calves there. He wasn't showing the frame size I desire. Neither bull had the frame size I desire. The older bull was a polled Hereford. I treat all bulls the same and try to cull early before I save daughters if I don't feel they will make it.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I have had a lot of fall out when trying to develop bulls. Thought I was making poor choices, but sounds like that was not the whole problem.

 

[Ky hills]

I have had a lot of fall out when trying to develop bulls. Thought I was making poor choices, but sounds like that was not the whole problem.

When we were doing bred heifer projects we had to buy calving ease heifer bulls and we went through several bulls over the course of a few years. There are a lot of reasons for a high turn over rate, and choices at the stage you are talking about are not the whole problem for sure. That was one of the reasons I started raising our own bulls, they may not have the hottest trendiest sire names or prefixes but they work just as good for what I want and if I need to cull I haven't lost money.