dishonest salebarns

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GMN

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I sold some high cell dairy cows yesterday at the local salebarn, and I am thinking I got jipped-I talked to one of the owners and it really bugs me what he said, he told me that my cows were thin-they weren't, he said one had lumps on the back thighs, a sure sign of lymphoma-cancer, and none of my cows had any lumps. I was quite upset with what I got, but frankly am more upset with the attitude of this guy. I'm thinking my cows got switched with someone elses, because my cows other than high cells were in great shape, no way do I believe anything that guy said, and I really believe i got swindled. Any one else ever have issues at the salebarn with any of your animals? I know there is nothing I can do about it, but I am quite upset about it all the same-

Makes me wonder alot of these people who run this place and their practices, needless to say I won't be going back there anytime soon if EVER-

GMN
 
Sell your cattle grade/yield. We sell all our cull dairy cows that way. No middle man or commision or getting screwed. We have Holy Cow up here and they pick them up and we get a check in the mail for what the cattle are WORTH!
 
GMN":129f5dlx said:
I sold some high cell dairy cows yesterday at the local salebarn, and I am thinking I got jipped-I talked to one of the owners and it really bugs me what he said, he told me that my cows were thin-they weren't, he said one had lumps on the back thighs, a sure sign of lymphoma-cancer, and none of my cows had any lumps. I was quite upset with what I got, but frankly am more upset with the attitude of this guy. I'm thinking my cows got switched with someone elses, because my cows other than high cells were in great shape, no way do I believe anything that guy said, and I really believe i got swindled. Any one else ever have issues at the salebarn with any of your animals? I know there is nothing I can do about it, but I am quite upset about it all the same-

Makes me wonder alot of these people who run this place and their practices, needless to say I won't be going back there anytime soon if EVER-

GMN
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Like someone said on here one time. "The sale barn is a place where honest men go to cheat each other".
 
Till-Hill":3n7ggyiw said:
Sell your cattle grade/yield. We sell all our cull dairy cows that way. No middle man or commision or getting screwed. We have Holy Cow up here and they pick them up and we get a check in the mail for what the cattle are WORTH!
Click to expand...


What is this, I never heard of anything like that? Someone comes and picks them up, and takes them where?
 
Straight to the packer. Most salebarns you can choose to sell them grade/yield too. Buddy of mine hauls his own cull cows straight to kill plant but they sell their fats at the salebarn.
 
Our system is a bit different here but it seems to me the middle-man's job is to talk up the cows to the buyer and talk them down to the seller... honesty doesn't really come into it.

One thing that still bugs me is when I was selling a large number of cows and I'd given the salesman information on the three groups - good young crossbreds, 14 in-calf Jersey heifers I'd picked out as the bottom end of my heifer line, and a large group of cows I rated as 'budgets' - the agent knew the reasons the budgets were being sold, production, temperament, one I suspected had a touch of arthritis and needed to be on a gentler farm. He asked me to give him another sheet of information with all the cows on it just listed as 'sale cows' instead of the three sheets I'd given him, one for each group.
I did what he asked. But I guessed as soon as he asked that the buyers weren't going to be told there was any distinction - and my worry was that evident poor quality cows would detract from the good cows. In fact, I got the sale sheet months later and that cow I suspected had arthritis got one of the highest prices.
i hope that if I was asked to do that again I'd just walk away from the sale and the agent. At that stage, I didn't have a choice.
 
GMN":1yj3q45o said:
Till-Hill":1yj3q45o said:
Sell your cattle grade/yield. We sell all our cull dairy cows that way. No middle man or commision or getting screwed. We have Holy Cow up here and they pick them up and we get a check in the mail for what the cattle are WORTH!
Click to expand...


What is this, I never heard of anything like that? Someone comes and picks them up, and takes them where?
Click to expand...

That's how mine go - direct to the meat buyer. I put culls through a saleyards once and would never do it again - lowest price I ever got. Mind you, I'd like to have a set of scales on farm so that I could check their weights before they go, because a lot of them have ridiculously low weights listed on the killsheet.
The killsheet also tells me how they graded and indicates any health problems found,which is useful - sometimes there's no symptoms in the herd but if there's pneumonia or liver damage indicated on the kill sheet it's probably in the rest of the herd as well.
The buyer arranges collection and pays for the transport.
 
How could they tell a cow had liver damage at a salebarn-?
This guy told me that one had lymphoma, which he said was bumps on the thigh, my guess is that the bumps ere caused by rough housing by his own darn employees, god knows what goes on in that place-I know when we took them in, my cows were healthy, no bumps, no thinness, this is why I highly doubt what he was telling me, they weren't my cows-burns me.....
More I think about it the more I am convinced I got swindled..
That ay be an option for me to think about directly taking htem to the packer, wonder where the closest one is though?
I think this guys attitude sucked, and how dare he, turn it around on me-I always say what comes around eventually goes around-in this case hope its true for that place-
 
The disease reports come directly from the meat works (what you call the packer, I guess) when the vet inspects the carcase. Those animals never went to the sale barn or yards of any sort.
Cull cows that are sold through the yards, you don't know who bought them and don't get any information of that sort back.

I wasn't sure from your first post if you were selling cows for slaughter or budget cows. I reckon selling direct is the only good option for slaughter cows - but I've heard of buyers picking out cows as they arrive and putting them back on the truck and I know one cow of mine that happened to, I got paid for her and given a grade and slaughter weight and everything! Then LIC rang up saying someone wanted her records transferred and I told them they were fools, because if I think a cow's good enough I sell her on as an open cow or budget. There was a reason that heifer went direct to slaughter... buyer beware applies a hundredfold for anyone picking out cows as they enter the slaughterhouse.

Rough-handling is possible but I wonder how long it would take a bump like that to show up? Surely 24 hours at least.
Sometimes bruising is listed on the killsheet and I know it didn't originate on farm - but then back in 2007 I had a truck driver try to put my bull in a pen with another two bulls and two cows and one of the bulls turned in the doorway and locked heads. I got straight on the phone and complained to the truck company about that and when the killsheet came through I got full payment and no mention of bruising. My bull was slammed against the truck wall probably better than twenty times before the driver managed to crush them all into the pen, the whole truck was banging and shaking. (those pens are big enough for four big cows or five small ones, not two big cows and three 2-yr beef bulls).
 
my 2 cents worth on sale barns.
I spent most of my early life following my pop in alleys of sale barns in Texas,first when he was a commisioned cattle buyer and later when he ran three sales. I have seen a good many sale barns an not a few cows. I have been run over by some of the best cattle in Texas as well as some of the rankest.
Sale barns make their money off a commision.There is also a feed charge and a yardage charge that pays for fixing things that get broken.Some Sale barns also charge an insurence fee,if animal breaks a leg etc,you get paid.
The more an animal; brings the more the sale barn makes as a perecentage of sale.So it is not in a barns interest to "cheat" a customer. This holds true for accurate scales.
Order buyers or other buyers for that matter are in a competing bid system to buy the animals,most animals will bring market because of this. Buyers usualy have an order for a certain number of animals for a set dollar figure.If the buyer gets one a bit cheaper he can give a bit more for another one as long as they work out to average the dollars per head.Most buyers will consider giving a bit more an animal to fill up a truck. Dont know if it is still a fact but when pop was a buyer if the animal did not fit the order,Over/underweight or Over dollars the animal belonged to the order buyer.
Sale barns depend on repeat customers and fair treatment is the best way to assure this. Being straight with the buyers is the only way to keep them coming to the sale.
So I think most sale barns are on the up and up.
 
baleflipper":2gmoxg1c said:
my 2 cents worth on sale barns.
I spent most of my early life following my pop in alleys of sale barns in Texas,first when he was a commisioned cattle buyer and later when he ran three sales. I have seen a good many sale barns an not a few cows. I have been run over by some of the best cattle in Texas as well as some of the rankest.
Sale barns make their money off a commision.There is also a feed charge and a yardage charge that pays for fixing things that get broken.Some Sale barns also charge an insurence fee,if animal breaks a leg etc,you get paid.
The more an animal; brings the more the sale barn makes as a perecentage of sale.So it is not in a barns interest to "cheat" a customer. This holds true for accurate scales.
Order buyers or other buyers for that matter are in a competing bid system to buy the animals,most animals will bring market because of this. Buyers usualy have an order for a certain number of animals for a set dollar figure.If the buyer gets one a bit cheaper he can give a bit more for another one as long as they work out to average the dollars per head.Most buyers will consider giving a bit more an animal to fill up a truck. Dont know if it is still a fact but when pop was a buyer if the animal did not fit the order,Over/underweight or Over dollars the animal belonged to the order buyer.
Sale barns depend on repeat customers and fair treatment is the best way to assure this. Being straight with the buyers is the only way to keep them coming to the sale.
So I think most sale barns are on the up and up.
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I don't disagree with you up to a point but then you have the other side of the coin where 20 red angus cross calves go thru a ring and 2 of them have a few roanie hairs on their flank and the buyers insist that they be cut off and sold separately for $.10 a lb less and then mix them right back into the original bunch and laugh all the way to the bank........and I don't wanna hear that it's because of anything but greed. You can tell they are peas in a pod except for the roanie hairs. I have seen an order buyer split one off , pay a quarter less for him cuz he was real flashy red and white(Shorthorn/Gv) cross and then brag to the fella next to him that he already had a buyer for him at a 150 dollar premium as a club calf. Of course I am sure that your Dad NEVER did any of that kind of stuff nor did any of the sale barns where he worked. ;-)
 
GMN":39c4ktzq said:
That ay be an option for me to think about directly taking htem to the packer, wonder where the closest one is though?
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don't matter where its at yous cows ends up there, yous gonna pay the truckin or they is. they stills diein there.
 
If you sat through the sale and didn't like the prices why didn't you p.o. them ? I've bought cows at several sales that were supposed to be bred and end up being open. I usually palpate them again when I get them home . Most of the time the barn will buy them back if they are misrepresented . How ever there is a sale not to far across the la. Tx border that is notorious for lieing about cattle.
 
JSCATTLE":kjgym734 said:
If you sat through the sale and didn't like the prices why didn't you p.o. them ? I've bought cows at several sales that were supposed to be bred and end up being open. I usually palpate them again when I get them home . Most of the time the barn will buy them back if they are misrepresented . How ever there is a sale not to far across the la. Tx border that is notorious for lieing about cattle.
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Most people don;t have an entire day (or more) to sit in the salebarn. That particular barn starts around noon on saturday and doesn;t finish up until sometimes 3-4 sunday morning.
 
3waycross":3rdczukv said:
[
I don't disagree with you up to a point but then you have the other side of the coin where 20 red angus cross calves go thru a ring and 2 of them have a few roanie hairs on their flank and the buyers insist that they be cut off and sold separately for $.10 a lb less and then mix them right back into the original bunch and laugh all the way to the bank........and I don't wanna hear that it's because of anything but greed. You can tell they are peas in a pod except for the roanie hairs. ;-)
Click to expand...

I usually have one or two of my stockers sorted off for things like this... and I usually bid on them.
 
I usually watch my calves sale. ill p o. any that they try to sell below the average sale price for the same type of calves . I p.o. ed 6 head out of 50 steers all averaging around 450 lbs. One time because they went for .20c lower . Barn owner ask me y I did that and I told him they sold low. he said well the buyers saw something wrong with the calves. you could have penned the calves together again and you wouldn't be able to pick out the 6 . I just laughed at him .ended up fattening the for butcher calves and made out better than what the others sold for .
 
I think most people here watch their calves sell. If your not there to represent them it looks kinda funny in these parts. If you cant take a half a day off to see what your yearly income is you too dang busy!

Weigh ups...thats a little different. I will watch mine. Have 3 or 4 buyers at our 4 local barns. Sometimes I really wonder what they think they see. Same way when sorting off calves. Sometimes the auctioneer/barn owner will question an ask to hold one or two, and they usually ask the owners of the calves if its ok to do so. Cows they pretty much roll em in and roll em out. Sometimes if one has a possiable problem I will take them to the packer. Use to be the cost to sell at the barn would buy a fair ammount of diesel fuel then I got what ever the guy would get who bought em at the barn. If they are straight cows or something someone might buy to feed, then they go to the barn.
 
Well said. The marketing aspect is as important as production.

I been to Neb couple times great country.I would move there in a heart beat if weather didnt get so cold. I lived here in Texas too long,my blood runs thin.
I enjoyed Husker Harvest Days farm show.Learned a lot about Irrigation.Wish we had the water. I had a great time saw lots of good folks showed my hay loader. Saw lots of real good cows and a feed yard full of buffalo.
Then Came home to a desert!
Joe
 
You had a spot at HHD in GI?

Ya Im glad I live where I do as well. If I go to Kansas right now to visit relation I sweat my butt off! I guess its kinda like getting use to cold in the fall or heat in the spring. First of April 50 your running around in a short sleve shirt. 50 first of October your looking for a coat! If I lived in Texas Id proably get use to the heat.
 

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