If you want to sell a bred cow, as a bred cow, then you have the right to tell them that she needs to be sold that way. We have a "head pen" here where they will sell cows that are bred or have small calves with them. HOWEVER, it doesn't matter if she is bred or not, if there are no bids from someone wanting a take home cow, she will get sold to whomever bids. And the auctioneer is at liberty to sell her by the lb if there are no bids at a "head" or per cow price.
If you decide to sell her, because she has balloon teats when she first calves, and you told them that, you may have sealed her fate right there. No one will buy a cow for a replacement if all that info is there either. I can speak from experience as someone who has more of the "be honest and tell all you can" ideology...... I used to be that way. And I did want to know all I could about a cow that I bring home. BUT, that cow is there BECAUSE you don't want her. Why should someone else want what you don't want??
I am not being a "b%$@#" about this. I have called sellers after I have bought animals to ask if there is any quirks I should know and most will tell you. Like
@TCRanch said, she sold one and the cow was going to go and she knew that it was a chance what the cow would do.
The other thing is that most sale barns will have some "bred cow sales" or some "replacements sale". Two of them here have a monthly bred cow sale. Anyone can sell, the vet will preg ck and do as
@Dave mentioned . Mark the months bred or trimester on the cow, age will be announced or marked in some way. Short breds will almost always wind up as cull/pound cows. Nut cases will often go on the kill trucks too.
If you cull it, then it is gone. If you have that much caring, then you have to make up your mind to not cull her. I have been there, done that. We usually wait for a bred cow sale to ship a cow we really have mixed feelings about, but don't necessarily want to see go to kill. Or out of synch with the rest.....Mostly all we cull are cows we decide that we don't want to raise another calf.....old, not great milkers, bad attitude, bad feet or legs...... they are cows we keep until they calve, then they go to a separate pasture where there is no bull, can't get bred back, and get a final time to live out a season and raise their calf. At the end of the grazing season, they get on the truck with the calves, and we have kept a few of the heifers they raised their last time around because we liked them. 99% of what we cull are AGE related. And with the age comes the other problems, legs, breeding problems..... we have culled a few that didn't milk and they left with their calves at weaning time and were not preg checked so we weren't tempted to keep them for the third or fourth time.
We don't cull for being out of synch because we run 2 calving groups. They go with the next group. IF they have problems breeding back again.... then they just go.........
I am sorry that you didn't get what you thought the cow was worth. But she was only worth that price to you and others paid what they felt she was worth to them. We had some pretty poor prices a couple weeks ago..... OLD COWS....... 40's ...... and we let them go. If you don't want to let them go for what you don't think is a fair price... then
@kenny thomas is right. Bid back your animals. We do, have done it often if the prices are off. We also spend alot of time watching the weekly prices and try to make decisions to sell, based on that. But we never ship anything without one of us being there to watch or have someone we trust to watch and have some base prices we won't stuff go for less.
My son has told me that I have more scruples than most, because I don't want to foist off a crappy milker or a bad attitude cow at a bred sale. I will refuse to sell her to someone else that way and will cull her. Take my lumps. But that is me.
OR else, make her into hamburger and stew meat and put more value into your freezer.
