Price of Feeder Heifers

[mhill]

I sent five angus cross heifers to a local feeder cattle sale in New Holland, PA last week. Two had an average weight of 850 and sold for .65 lb and three were 750 weight and sold for .63 lb. Needless to say I was less than pleased. I knew prices were lower, but I was expecting at least .85 lb. I was at a finished sale at the same place the week before and some junk cattle were bringing .80 lb for the same weight as mine. This is the last time I will send to a feeder sale as this is the second time I got screwed. Anybody else seeing these prices. Is it possible my cattle would have been over conditioned that they were docked. They looked good to me and my trucker agreed with my price expectations.

 

[Bullbuyer]

I have at least two questions:
1) Assuming this was a graded sale - how did your calves grade?
2) What color were they? Not BREED, color.
3) Any chance they were bred?
I can not agree with 'lower prices' as that has certainly not been the trend in our area.

 

[mhill]

They were solid black calves, not pregnant. Not 100% sure if it was a graded sale. They ran them in seperate lots so it may have been.

 

[stocky]

If you care one way or another about what the animals bring the number one rule at an auction is, always be prepared to buy the animals back and bring them back home if they dont bring what you want. If you are not prepared to do that, they will bring what they buyers can get away with in the particular situation and there will be times when you will be very, very, unhappy. If you cant be there, have a friend to buy them back if they dont bring enough, or simply put a minimum sale price on them when you unload them and if they dont bring that, they are no-sale cattle and you come and get them and bring them back home.

 

[Bama]

If you care one way or another about what the animals bring the number one rule at an auction is, always be prepared to buy the animals back and bring them back home if they dont bring what you want. If you are not prepared to do that, they will bring what they buyers can get away with in the particular situation and there will be times when you will be very, very, unhappy. If you cant be there, have a friend to buy them back if they dont bring enough, or simply put a minimum sale price on them when you unload them and if they dont bring that, they are no-sale cattle and you come and get them and bring them back home.

Very good advice here. Cattle are only worth what someone is willing to pay at that perticular time.

 

[PaMike]

New Holland is in my backyard! Where are you from? As much as you dont like it you got the going price in this area for feader Heifers right now. I was at New Hollands friday night say a couple of weeks ago and there were some nice heifers barely breaking $.60. You have to remember that with corn prices where they are people arent as interested in buying animals that they have to dump a lot of corn into. Fat cattle are selling very well at New Holland.

 

[mhill]

The shame of it is I had a guy come to the farm a week after that sale and offer me .90 lb. I wouldn't have sent them, but the week before at the fat sale they were bringing good money for heifers of the same weight. I guess sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

 

[PaMike]

Which sale did you send them to? The Thursday sale? New Holland is interesting because at the fat sale on Thursday it is mostly all packers so the feeders really dont sell that well. I got burnt on that once too. The feeders really sell best at their Friday night sales. They dont advertise those sales well, so you almost have to call them. They have two in the spring and two in the fall. Next one is at the end of May. At these feeder sales is when you get a lot of the farmers buying. At these sales the feeders sell well but fat/almost fat dont sell well at all because the packers dont come. At the last sale in April my buddy bought 2 fat black heifers and sold them the next Thursday(fat sale) and made $200 each. Its all in selling at the right sale at the right time.

 

[mnmtranching]

I don't think that being fleshy would hurt them at that weight, they should have sold as short time feeders at about the same price as feeds. Sounds like it was a buyers market.

At least that's the way it is here in MN.