Lost cow at auction

[collegeboundgal]

Has anyone else ever had the sale barn "lose" one of your cows? I happened to go back to a sale this evening where we took two cows that had lost their calves. Inquired about if they had a check (to see if they had gone through already) and they hadn't sold yet. Sat to watch and *finally* seen one go through. Next thing I know it's over. She was 2nd to last one sale when we sure as heck unloaded before a LOT of other trailers! Went to see about my check figuring I had maybe juuust missed the other cow sale. Come to find out, they couldn't find her. She had apparently lost the tag they stick on them for their own identification. They said they just happened to have *one* without a tag in the back. I told them ours was a *big* cow (another reason I sold her) with our color tag and number. They went back to see if description matched the one w/o their tag and low and behold it did. (I said I was more than happy to go lay eyes on her as I could tell right away if she was ours for sure, but they declined my offer saying there was cows everywhere... Riiiiight.) Wouldn't have ever guessed she would weigh *exactly* 1400lbs. Make me wonder what our check would have been for if I had not went back and stayed and been able to give a "description" that she was a big cow, as our other one we took that I did get to see sale weighed only 910... (Small cow, not starving). Would they have thought a other cow we took weighed about the same? And what recourse would we have if that had happened? It would have been our word against theirs and guess who would have been told to suck it...

I think we will start using another sale barn.

 

[Redgully]

Never had that happen but have seen a pretty good yelling match when some guy loaded a few extra cattle that he didn't buy. Worst I've had happen was have a cow sold for chips because they said i made a mistake on paperwork. She was a hat rack so i didn't really care.

 

[wbvs58]

Individual electronic ID would help. Panel readers in the race as they go into the weigh box makes it very accountable.

Ken

 

[kenny thomas]

Loosing a tag happens. I was at a sale in KY this week and seen 2 calves come through that had lost their tags. Most sales here now use 2 tags to lessen the chance of a problem. The cow would have still went through the sale and had the correct weight. As the checks were written they would have found it. It seems to me that they didn't do anything wrong.

 

[Dave]

Not uncommon to see a cow come in the ring with a tag on its back and another one stuck on its chin or else where. Those tags do get rubbed off.
Come out to some of these bigger western sales this time of the year when calves are coming to town. There will be 3,000 calves and they only thing they tag is the singles. They are all branded so the seller is covered. But on the buyers end what if I bought a lot of 40 head of 600 pound steers and they accidentally get mixed with 30 head 550 pound steers from the same seller. How do they get it sorted back out correctly?

 

[Ky cowboy]

Grandad had a sale barn lose a 600lb steer few years back. He had to show proof he unloaded x amount and got paid for x amount. They asked him what he thought it weighed and paid him top price to make up for it.

 

[Lucky]

Here they put a salebarn tag on each hip when they unload you. Then write out a ticket with all the numbers on it for you to keep. Not sure what kind of glue they use on the tags but it doesn't let go easy.

 

[Silver]

Here to haul cattle you need a manifest. When you unload at auction they are verified against the manifest by the brand inspector and signed, with a copies for you and the auction market. Really no way to argue if one is missing or not.

 

[palindrome]

I recently just sold my first cattle at a sale barn. When we drove through they gave us a receipt and put the tags on them. My friend told me not to lose the receipt in case they get something wrong they will make good on it. I did learn to make sure they write the ticket right because instead of a bull calf they put down heifer, but from the price it got it sold correctly.

 

[DLD]

If they had been trying to put something over on you, they wouldn't have been honest and said they lost your cow. You probably would have gotten some story about the computers or the printers not working right or alien abduction or something else beyond anyone's control. It happens, tags come off - not often, but they do, And there's nothing suspicious about anything weighing an even number - it's just as likely to come up as any other number. As far as I know every sale barn scale weighs in five pound increments, so 1400 means her exact weight would be somewhere between 1397.5 and 1402.5 - you may see an odd number as an average on a group or a draft, but the total weight always ends in 0 or 5.
Just like Kenny said, when all the tickets are in, the lost tags are usually fairly easy to sort out. If there's only one sold without a tag and one animal left unsold in the computer, it's pretty obvious which one it is.