Getting less at the sale barn

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I've done business with what I thought was all kinds of sale barns but that's a new one on me. Ten thousand head a day is a lot, especially this time of year.
There was a salebarn in Springfield Missouri 25 years ago that did it that way. There were four or five commission company's there and each one would sell for a hour. They competed for your cattle and if the commission co had the 10 oclock slot you could ask them to sell your cattle then and not in there 2 oclock slot. It was like 5 different sale barns in one location. Then the commission company's got together and bought the salebarn and it became like all the rest. It's still a pretty good sale. That's my memory from 30 years ago
 
Our local sale barns will group some cows together sometimes, but they are pretty much equal, they sell the killer's separate.
I could tell them to put these two together, they are bred, young and in good shape.
Why are you selling them? Young, bred, good shape, sounds like keepers. I really like the red!
They are definitely keepers.
But that's not the business we're in anymore, buying and selling is what we do now.
I have to keep telling myself that, because it's easy to fall in love with good cows.
We bought these during the drought last year, they were pretty poor and we didn't give much for them, if we can get a live calf on the ground they will bring decent money, maybe 4x what we gave for them.
 
They MAKE you sign your calves over to this "company", that you have to pay them to sell your calves, and this company is owned by the order buyers?!!! Sounds like some kind of union scam to me! Are all sale barns in Oklahoma run that way, or just that one?
Dad sold hogs there when there wasn't a ring, just the commission company guys selling straight out of their pens.
 
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