pen hookers

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Well I learned something today. The term pen hookers and that not everyone brands. It's a good day when you learn something.

Well, we are in SW MO and we have a bunch of cattle theft that went on over the last year. So much that we started freeze branding all of our cattle over a year ago. But we are a rarity, since the extension decided to put on a demonstration on branding and asked us to teach others how to freeze brand.
However, there are no brand inspectors out here like the west coast. When we moved cattle in CA, we had to always have a brand inspection paper with us. Out here, never have we been asked. So, way more lax.

 

[Dave]

So they are buying them and then just running them through the barn? So no brand inspection, no proof of ownership? That's weird to me. Out here if you sell you have to have a brand inspection done. Wether it's one calf or a thousand.

How about the Beef Commission? Here I think it is $1.50 a head every time a cow changes ownership. I imagine the pen hookers forget to pay that too. Also, here you are required to have a bonded buyers license to buy livestock which you resell within 90 days. If these pen hookers showed up at a sale yard I imagine that the state dept of agriculture would be there shortly explaining to them the error in their ways.

 

[Shadscale]

We get charged a Predator control fee as well. Yea Penhookers around here wouldn't have much of a business either cause the state wouldn't be getting their cut.

 

[kenny thomas]

Ok, if you go somewhere and buy a bull off the farm do you pay the beef promotion $1 or the predator control fee? Or if you buy a cow or a calf off your next door neighbor? I bet not. Same was with the penhookers, how does anyone really know for sure a sale has happened? Not saying it is right but nothing is charged except for the normal fees when it goes through the sale barn.
Oh and the state man never says anything to anyone except the sale barn here. P&S control the bonds not the state.

 

[Shadscale]

Those type of sales do go on without the state getting involved. I was just meaning they wouldn't be hustling sellers outside an auction barn here.

 

[kenny thomas]

We don't allow it here at our barn either but it happens a lot nearby in TN.

 

[Shadscale]

Do they usually just back trailers together and exchange livestock that way? Or would they use the sale barn facilities?

 

[fitz]

Do they usually just back trailers together and exchange livestock that way? Or would they use the sale barn facilities?

They just pay cash on the trailer and when you unload they run them thru on their number.

fitz

 

[Dave]

Different ways of doing business in different parts of the country....... But I know that if someone I don't know climbed up on the side of my trailer to look at what I am hauling, he would be very unceremoniously told to get off my trailer.

 

[Shadscale]

Everywhere is different. It would be interesting to watch them work. I'm just imagining when I'm unloading at my local barn if someone was trying to buy my livestock on my trailer as I'm unloading what the employees at the barn would be thinking. But I guess there's a place and a purpose for Penhookers or they wouldn't be in business.

 

[fitz]

If you're a regular and they know you won't sell they don't bother. Actually, I don't see Penhookers around much now. I think the old ones here died out and no one replaced them. The barns I go to have "NO PENHOOKING" signs up and discourage it.

fitz

 

[animalsci2011]

Just going to chime in here. Tennessee has a lot of pen hookers. Depending on what you take to the sale sometimes its better to sell to them, if the animal isn't producing or what not. Maybe its got a bum leg, or just won't breed. If the animal is good and I know this I don't stop by the hookers trailers. If I expect I won't get a lot for the animal in the ring I'll stop and let them have it. North east tennessee barns don't usually say anything about it, they know the hookers are there but they also know that there are very few animals sold to them, or they should be. Like another poster said they are usually a team that has a buyer outside and the bidder inside. That way if they can't pick them up outside they can get them if they want inside, the stockpen at home usually has two bidders inside and two sets of hookers outside. If you want an animal you know after about the 3rd one comes through what you need to pay for it to buy it. There have been a few times when the animals never see the ring. They will run them through but they nobid them so they never see it. They pay the nosale bill and thats it, usually $15-20 here but I assume its different everywhere.