Headed to the sale barn

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kenny thomas said:
At Oklahoma city stockyard a commission company handles your calves, not the stockyard. Im thinking there are 7 or 8 commission companies you can choose between. They handle the care and sale of your calves. Bird dog can explain it further. Oklahoma is the only place i have seen it.
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Judging by the name, I asume the seller has to pay them a "commission" for this service? And I guess you have no choice but to use them? Sounds almost like a union racket to me! Wonder of the sale barn also gets a fee or commission on the sales? Does the sale barn have personnel to gather and load them out for the buyers? @bird dog ?
 
bird dog said:
The worst group I ever had shrink wise as well as under-performance wise went on a way over-loaded pot to OKC that I shared with a neighbor lady. They shrank about 8% and sold for about 20 cents under the average.

The commission company had actually bought them for themselves. I watched them sale and called the commission company man immediately afterwords suspecting some monkey business was going on. He said he would talk to the yard man & they would run them through again. They did a few hours later without much change and the commission company bought them back again. He called me this time and said I got a bum deal and they could see that my calves were worth more then they brought so he paid me 10 cents a pound more than the sales price and put them on his own wheat grazing program.

I ask what the buyers were missing. He said nothing. He said when they arrived they were covered with a green muddy manure and just looked bad. He said the sales yard is dry and muddy cows get discounted a large amount when none of the other are muddy. It was raining hard when we loaded but my calves had spent the night in my covered pens and were clean. The neighbor lady's had not, plus she had fed them green rye grass hay for two days that they were penned.

The pot was way to crowded so mine got crapped on the whole way. A few months later he called and said my calves had performed very well on his wheat and he was glad he had bought them. That at least took some of the sting off the bad deal.

I went back to hauling my own after that.
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i'm looking into some rice lake scales and weigh / sell right off the farm w/ superior, add in a 2 or 3% shrink from the weight and get paid on that.
 
The yard and the commission company work on a set per head fee. You also pay insurance, beef check off, yardage and a sales staff fee. The commission company charges for feed determined on how long they are there. It sounds like a lot but usually runs around $32 per head for mine being fed two days with the day of the sale being one. Its real feed, not hay. Quite a bit cheaper than the barns in this area that sale on a percentage especially with cattle as high as they are now. Commission savings is one reason I can afford to ship them as far as I do. Shrink savings and a better than local price is the others. I can't get paid locally for selling vaccinated and long weaned calves.
You technically unload your own animals into one of their pens where the yard workers get a count of you animals then move them to a set of pens in the commission companies part of the yard. Its a very big place.

From there the commission company man determines how to sort them, feeds them, and gets them moved to the sales ring on Monday. He is in the sales ring with them and setts the opening price. If he does his job, he lets the auctioneer know of their vac history as well as days weaned and anything else that might help them sale better. He can also pull one out if it got hurt shipping, is sick or just doesn't match the others. Those will sale the next day.

He pays you as well as your freight company if you hired someone to bring them in. He also handles the problems like if you have a insurance claim or if a heifer proves out pregnant after you guaranteed them open.

The yard workers handle them after selling, and through the load out process.

It works very efficiently and why they can move 15,000 head in a day if need be. This is at the Stockyards. OKC West works the same way except the commission company work is done in house.

Picking a commission company is not real critical as they all work pretty much the same way. Some sort a little different than others. Its a matter of trust and service and as shown from my problem above and can help build a reputation. I picked one of the smaller companies hoping I would get better service for my small groups. Western is by far the biggest and did mine for years but I felt my calves kind of fell through the cracks as I am such a small producer so I switched. The man I use knows my calves won't be the best but they have had their shots, are weaned what I say they, are and are healthy. His order buying company will buy a lot of them.

Commission company's used to work all the big yards. My dad was one at the Ft. Worth yard back in the 50's. Back then they sold directly from the pens. The buyers and the auctioneer all walked through the yard.
 
bird dog said:
The yard and the commission company work on a set per head fee. You also pay insurance, beef check off, yardage and a sales staff fee. The commission company charges for feed determined on how long they are there. It sounds like a lot but usually runs around $32 per head for mine being fed two days with the day of the sale being one. Its real feed, not hay. Quite a bit cheaper than the barns in this area that sale on a percentage especially with cattle as high as they are now. Commission savings is one reason I can afford to ship them as far as I do. Shrink savings and a better than local price is the others. I can't get paid locally for selling vaccinated and long weaned calves.
You technically unload your own animals into one of their pens where the yard workers get a count of you animals then move them to a set of pens in the commission companies part of the yard. Its a very big place.

From there the commission company man determines how to sort them, feeds them, and gets them moved to the sales ring on Monday. He is in the sales ring with them and setts the opening price. If he does his job, he lets the auctioneer know of their vac history as well as days weaned and anything else that might help them sale better. He can also pull one out if it got hurt shipping, is sick or just doesn't match the others. Those will sale the next day.

He pays you as well as your freight company if you hired someone to bring them in. He also handles the problems like if you have a insurance claim or if a heifer proves out pregnant after you guaranteed them open.

The yard workers handle them after selling, and through the load out process.

It works very efficiently and why they can move 15,000 head in a day if need be. This is at the Stockyards. OKC West works the same way except the commission company work is done in house.

Picking a commission company is not real critical as they all work pretty much the same way. Some sort a little different than others. Its a matter of trust and service and as shown from my problem above and can help build a reputation. I picked one of the smaller companies hoping I would get better service for my small groups. Western is by far the biggest and did mine for years but I felt my calves kind of fell through the cracks as I am such a small producer so I switched. The man I use knows my calves won't be the best but they have had their shots, are weaned what I say they, are and are healthy. His order buying company will buy a lot of them.

Commission company's used to work all the big yards. My dad was one at the Ft. Worth yard back in the 50's. Back then they sold directly from the pens. The buyers and the auctioneer all walked through the yard.
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We have one of the commission company men living here in north Texas. In addition to what bird dog described, he will come to your farm to look at your cattle and even bring a pod and portable loader out to haul for you. Still one more pocket to fill before you get your check
 
kenny thomas said:
Are you hauling them in a day early?
Consider that if weighing 600 and they loose even 5% thats 30lb per calf. At $3 a lb thats $90 per calf. Looks like 8 calves so thats $720 lost. Weight loss gets serious when prices are this high.
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Hauled and sold today the 450# calf brought 3.10 a pound the 6 wt brought 2.50.
Essentially the same money .
Those two calves were out of sync.
 
Caustic Burno said:
Hauled and sold today the 450# calf brought 3.10 a pound the 6 wt brought 2.50.
Essentially the same money .
Those two calves were out of sync.
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Some buyers here are saying that people are selling smaller calves and later on there will be a shortage because they are already gone. Plus so many cows getting sold will change calf numbers in the future.
 
kenny thomas said:
Some buyers here are saying that people are selling smaller calves and later on there will be a shortage because they are already gone. Plus so many cows getting sold will change calf numbers in the future.
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I still haven't figured out where they are all going... Ya sure aren't seeing all this excess meat lowering the prices in the grocery stores.
 
kenny thomas said:
Some buyers here are saying that people are selling smaller calves and later on there will be a shortage because they are already gone. Plus so many cows getting sold will change calf numbers in the future.
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That is what has been going on here. There were a lot of 3-4wt calves sold. The bigger sale in the area was running over 2k every week.

We got some rain now though and a good spring green up. The sale barely ran 700 this week. There was a jump in prices just off demand, I'm assuming, especially on the bigger calves.
 
Brute 23 said:
That is what has been going on here. There were a lot of 3-4wt calves sold. The bigger sale in the area was running over 2k every week.

We got some rain now though and a good spring green up. The sale barely ran 700 this week. There was a jump in prices just off demand, I'm assuming, especially on the bigger calves.
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Most calves sold in this part of the world are 4-5 wt.
Again no one sees an advantage to holding the calves longer due to the incremental price difference.
Most would rather get the big calves off the pasture and run a few more cows.
It's about grass management two 6 wt calves consume the grass a cow could be consuming.
What makes the world go round different managing styles.
 
Caustic Burno said:
Most calves sold in this part of the world are 4-5 wt.
Again no one sees an advantage to holding the calves longer due to the incremental price difference.
Most would rather get the big calves off the pasture and run a few more cows.
It's about grass management two 6 wt calves consume the grass a cow could be consuming.
What makes the world go round different managing styles.
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They were dumping because of the dry weather and high prices. With the moisture now, they are holding, even though they probably shouldn't. It will be interesting to see what that does to the market.

In a normal year most will be selling 500+ with quite a few being 6+ and untouched.
 
Caustic Burno said:
Most calves sold in this part of the world are 4-5 wt.
Again no one sees an advantage to holding the calves longer due to the incremental price difference.
Most would rather get the big calves off the pasture and run a few more cows.
It's about grass management two 6 wt calves consume the grass a cow could be consuming.
What makes the world go round different managing styles.
Click to expand...
That's how most do it here. Conventional wisdom is you want to trailer wean calves at 6 mos, over 400 lbs but not much over 500. A weaned calf, to include retained replacements, is eating grass a pregnant or nursing cow could be eating. Down here, if you want to succeed in the cattle business,, you need to first be in the grass business. The bulls, your cow lines, supplements, vitamins, meds etc, are all important, but your main focus needs to be learning all you can about grass, fertilizer, etc. As we are losing 100's of thousands of acres a year to development in the south, utilizing what ag land there is in the most efficient way is crucial.
 
Trailer weaning cattle is a money loser at the markets available to us. I've done it both ways and trailer weaned 5wts bring .40-.60 less than weaned calves.

Personally I have more summer grass than my cows can graze so feeding steers to 8wt on over abundant "cheap" grass brings a good return on investment. I rotate a few pastures, give them water and watch them add +300lbs over the summer.
 
chevytaHOE5674 said:
Trailer weaning cattle is a money loser at the markets available to us. I've done it both ways and trailer weaned 5wts bring .40-.60 less than weaned calves.

Personally I have more summer grass than my cows can graze so feeding steers to 8wt on over abundant "cheap" grass brings a good return on investment. I rotate a few pastures, give them water and watch them add +300lbs over the summer.
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Here they are going to give you 1600 for a 4 wt or a 7.
A good 4 will bring four bucks a pound the 7's 2.50.
I have never understood why that's the way is here.
 

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