Bull sales

[tamarack]

How are the bulls selling in your area? They are not moving much around here and prices have fell quite a bit. I sold all stock i had last year 10 bulls and so far this year only sold 3 have 6 left . Have gone to lots of sales and quite a few breeders have taken a percentage home after not making 2000 or 2500 min bids. Maybe i saturated the market in my area last year,

 

[Nesikep]

I can say no one wanted my yearling bull.. he wasn't fancy looking or anything, but $1100 was a bit of a kick in the nuts... Don't know about registered stock.. if this keeps up I might just have to have my Limo bull hit the road in the fall and trade him in on a better but young Saler bull

 

[dun]

The only bull sale I know anything about was last month. Couldn;t believe the low prices. Out of some 50 bulls only 2 sold for much above a minimum bid. The 2 high sellers were polar opposits. They were good looking bulls but not really any better then some of the others. But these 2 had EPDs stacked, one for maternal and the other for carcass.

 

[Supa Dexta]

Prices have been strong around here this spring. Record breaking even. Was at a sale last month that topped at 16000.

 

[M.Magis]

I've only been to two. One, two small producers get together and sell around 30 angus bulls. Nearly all went over $3k, up to $8k.
The other one was the following week, the eastern Ohio Angus Association consignment sale. Slighly less animals, far lower prices. Saw a lot go for $1500 or even lower. Top may have been $4k.

I'm not sure why such a difference.

 

[elkwc]

Either attended or watched 4 sales. All were production sales. Three were in my area. Angus bulls and females overall have been a lot softer except at one sale compared to last year. One Angus sale and both Hereford sales in this area had averages on the 2 y/o's over 5 and the one Hereford sale saw around 4,500 on the yearlings. One Angus sale I attended the yearlings average was 5,1000. Where it was really soft was on the females. One sale had both Herefords and Angus. The Herefords outsold the Angus by 7-800 dollars on every head and in some cases more. Saw bred commercial Hereford heifers bring 3,000 dollars at it. So was hard to get a real feel for what was selling. Talked to one Hereford breeder who always consigns to a regional bull sale and he said he sold out in 5 weeks at his house so had no bulls to take. But others especially non Hereford breeders are telling me the same story the OP stated. Seeing some quality bulls being offered for around 3 now. The same bull would of broung 5 last year.

 

[Aaron]

Haven't heard of many buying bulls this year. I know I have only one yearling that I didn't want to sell, but was demanded buy a previous buyer that I sell it to him. I now have a small waiting list for non-existent bulls - good problem for a Hereford guy to have. Wish I had 1/2 dozen yearlings kicking around. My prices aren't sky-high, so dropping bull prices don't affect me.

 

[tamarack]

Aaron, same thing around here last year and them this year everything just went flat. Hope it picks up next year.

 

[creekdrive]

Hope your bull sales pick up soon Tamarack! Have you been affected by the fires at all up there?

We were pretty much sold out by the end of March. Have 1 yearling left & 1 two year old. Started with around 40 total. Have saved a couple yearlings back to keep around as backups in case we or a customer has a problem this summer. Could easily have sold another dozen heifer bulls if we had them, but the ones that are left are better suited for cows. The one thing we did notice this year is usually we have lots of calls looking for 2 year olds, but not at all this year. Glad we only had 6 to move, because there sure hasn't been much interest in them. The other thing we have been noticing the past couple years is everybody is coming earlier & earlier... Used to be that nobody started to come & look until maybe April, usually May. Now they are starting to come Feb-March some even sooner.

Only went to 1 bull sale this spring:
http://www.anguswebmail.ca/cats/2016/Spring/builtright16.html
20 Angus Bulls averaged $7,240; 31 Simmental $6,934; 15 Charolais $7,803.

I think the angus average was close to the same last year. The Char & Sims were higher this year though. Bull sales seem to have been up & down overall. Some had higher than ever prices, but have heard of a few sales where breeders took quite a few bulls home that didn't sell. That's got to suck after all the $$$'s put into having a sale. At least if they don't sell private treaty you are pretty much only out the feed...

 

[GRTiger85]

sold my last one a few weeks ago, it hit a slowdown for me for a month or so then picked back up. Had 4 people call wanting bulls after I sold the last one.

 

[SPH]

Had 4 bulls in the sale pen, sold 2 right off the bat to repeat customers back in Feb. but still have 2 left that were probably the best 2 in the sale pen that we've dropped price on quite at bit. Still get some calls from time to time but the market has definitely softened up the past couple months and seeing a lot more people still marketing the same bulls they have been since the start of the year so I think there are a lot of guys with bulls in the same boat right now looking for buyers. At this point we're just going to hold on the price of 1 of them and use him cleanup on a small group of our own females then probably try to sell him in the fall or maybe put him on a sale next year as a 2 year old. The other one we'll just keep marketing and taking calls on, I think if we can get the right guy to come out and take look at him we can strike a deal. Had a guy call the other day inquiring who said he had a bull come up lame so you never know when a guy may all the sudden find himself looking for a bull and you may have just what he needs.

Definitely a different market than it was the last few years, we sold 3 bulls in just 1 week last year at a flat price and had 1 we put on reserve we were going to use as a herd bull but would consider offers on him and in hindsight we probably could have gotten more than we did for them at the time. This year everyone seems a little gun-shy even at a lower price than what we have been pricing the past few years and I've seen some guys in the area come down as much as $2000 or more on some of their highest priced bulls too. What stinks is our calf crop this year 75% of our calves were bulls so going to be a few that see the knife this fall that may not have some other years as we just don't have the market to sell more than 3 or 4 bulls most years. When it comes to females though seems like we never have enough to meet the demand we get as we get calls year round.

 

[elkwc]

We had a bull go lame so just started looking. There are plenty of bulls available. Breeders who were sold out this time last year have several now. A good selection. Will do some more looking this weekend. Most have been in the 3-4 thousand range. Had one breeder who went from 4 up on both his Black and Red Angus. So likely won't look at them. Looked at some very good Horned Herefords bulls. Can't seem to find any good polled bulls for sale. One breeder has some from 18 months old to a few 3 & 4 y/o's that they have used for sale. So more of a buyers market for sure.