Sale barns

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bscattle said:
So I think the plan needs to be that we take a day and go to some sale barns and watch, visit ask questions etc….

And since for now we are only going to be small operation we might just try to sale them ourselves…

What about going to like state fairs or little 4-H fairs…but I think most of those are show cattle that go straight to slaughter?
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Best way to sell those 3 will be to carry them straight to a sale bart. Selling them yourself, if you OOULD market them, the only people who would respond would be traders looking to buy some to carry to the sale, And they won't pay you anywhere near what they think they will bring at auction. Don't ;let them make that profit...YOU make it carrying them yourself. Same thing when you sell the pairs. No one is going to private -sale buy pairs like that , that were bought at sale barn a few months before. UNLESS they can buy them for less than what they would bring at a sale. The show steers are sold and slaughtered ay the end of the show season, but the show heifers usually end up as brood cows.
 
Yes that's price per lb.
Stocker cows are normally what people buy to take back home and keep.
Packer cows go to slaughter but have good condition on them. Lots of meat.
Low dressing are skinny cows that arent carrying much meat on them. Still go to slaughter but at a cheaper price.
Packer bulls go to slaughter also.
Some of the slaughter animals may go hundreds of miles before slaughtered. I know every week there are cows from Texas that are slaughtered in Augusta GA.
 
bscattle said:
So I think the plan needs to be that we take a day and go to some sale barns and watch, visit ask questions etc….

And since for now we are only going to be small operation we might just try to sale them ourselves…

What about going to like state fairs or little 4-H fairs…but I think most of those are show cattle that go straight to slaughter?
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Hard to beat a gentle heifer raised and shown by a kid. Plus you're supporting the next generation.

Now that doesn't work for everyone but someone with a small program it's good.
 
bird dog said:
Show cattle melt in our heat. They sell very cheap at the sale barn because everyone knows they won't easily breed up and will lose a bunch of weight.
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Don't forget; they don't do well when thrown into a large group, you can't eat hair, they tend to not grade, 🤔 give me time I'm sure I'll come up with more.
 
Cattle do not sale in the order they are dropped off. We took some cull cows in the day before the sale and, no kidding, they were within the last 5 to sale, selling well after 11pm (sale starts at 6) when 95% of buyers were gone. We don't sale cattle there anymore. We had been using them for years and this was the final straw.
 
collegeboundgal said:
Cattle do not sale in the order they are dropped off. We took some cull cows in the day before the sale and, no kidding, they were within the last 5 to sale, selling well after 11pm (sale starts at 6) when 95% of buyers were gone. We don't sale cattle there anymore. We had been using them for years and this was the final straw.
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All of the sales here sell by class of livestock. Generally groups of feeder calves first, then the singles, then pairs or bred cows, and kill cows last. The kill cows are tagged and all go into a big pen. The first ones coming out of the pen sell first. Those that hang to the back sell last.
I was at a sale last winter. There was a dozen or so bred cows but a ton of feeder calves. Sale started at noon. At 10:00 I went out to see if the bred cows were getting close. It was feeder calves for as far as I could see. I gave up and went home. The next week there I asked one of the kill buyers how long it lasted. He said the last cow through the ring was at 5:36 that next morning.
 
That's the order I remember everything being sold, when there was still a sale barn on the coast.
 
They are all different. One barn here sells cows and bulls first. Followed by yearlings and ending with little ones. Sometimes they will sell babies right off the cows before starting on yearlings. Sometimes not. Rather frustrating.

Another up the road, sell lil ones first. Then yearlings and finishes up with cows.

Couple others in the area are the same as the two I talked about.

I like to sell calves at the one because I don't wanna wait all day.
I like to sell cows at the other for the same reason.
 
Dave said:
All of the sales here sell by class of livestock. Generally groups of feeder calves first, then the singles, then pairs or bred cows, and kill cows last. The kill cows are tagged and all go into a big pen. The first ones coming out of the pen sell first. Those that hang to the back sell last.
I was at a sale last winter. There was a dozen or so bred cows but a ton of feeder calves. Sale started at noon. At 10:00 I went out to see if the bred cows were getting close. It was feeder calves for as far as I could see. I gave up and went home. The next week there I asked one of the kill buyers how long it lasted. He said the last cow through the ring was at 5:36 that next morning.
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That's how it's done at the sale barn we now go to. We take them to the springfield livestock marketing center in missouri. I have vouge memories of the old one and, if my memory serves me correctly, they did it mostly the same way with an occasional age mix. not sure why the random age mixing happened. But (I think) they would pin the cows separately based on owner.
 
MurraysMutts said:
They are all different. One barn here sells cows and bulls first. Followed by yearlings and ending with little ones. Sometimes they will sell babies right off the cows before starting on yearlings. Sometimes not. Rather frustrating.

Another up the road, sell lil ones first. Then yearlings and finishes up with cows.

Couple others in the area are the same as the two I talked about.

I like to sell calves at the one because I don't wanna wait all day.
I like to sell cows at the other for the same reason.
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Of course they are private businesses and can do it how ever they decide. When I said they generally do it in that order I was talking the PNW. I have been to 5 of the 7 sale yards still existing in Oregon and several which are no longer in business. All of the operating sales in Washington and 9 which are gone. They all operate or operated in that order. I have never seen a sale which sold in the order they were delivered. That would make for buyers having to sit in the seats all day not knowing if the next one in the ring is a cull cow or a 300 pound heifer.
 
Dave said:
I have never seen a sale which sold in the order they were delivered.
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I've never been to a sale that sells all classes in one sale.
The barn I worked for sold fats and culls on Tuesday morning ( which sometimes ran almost into the night sale) and then general Lvsk at night.
The barn we use now sells fats and culls on Tuesday and general Lvsk on Thursday.
 
SBMF 2015 said:
I've never been to a sale that sells all classes in one sale.
The barn I worked for sold fats and culls on Tuesday morning ( which sometimes ran almost into the night sale) and then general Lvsk at night.
The barn we use now sells fats and culls on Tuesday and general Lvsk on Thursday.
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They all do here. But I haven't seen any fats at the sale in a lot of years. The one exception is Toppenish. They are in an area of mega dairies. On Monday they just sell kill cows. On Thursday they start about 10:00 with kill cows. Stop selling cows about 1:00 and start selling calves, then bred stock, and and after that finish up on the kill cows. On Saturday they sell pigs, sheep, goats, some sorry calves, and anything else which comes in. I have been told that if I went on Saturday I would be one of the three people who just speak English.
The two sales I attend here sell the few horses, sheep and goats first. Then they sell calves and yearlings. Then pairs and breds unless it is a stock cow special in which case they sell the stock cows ahead of the calves. Cull cows are always last. Starting in September until about February they will run 2,000+ head a week at both sales. I have never seen a pig at either sale. The last Thursday of the month is sheep special at La Grande. There are some big commercial flocks in that area. Sometimes it is a good idea to avoid the front end of that sale. Several hundred sheep. The good thing is they sell sheep in large bunches.
 
Dave said:
They all do here. But I haven't seen any fats at the sale in a lot of years. The one exception is Toppenish. They are in an area of mega dairies. On Monday they just sell kill cows. On Thursday they start about 10:00 with kill cows. Stop selling cows about 1:00 and start selling calves, then bred stock, and and after that finish up on the kill cows. On Saturday they sell pigs, sheep, goats, some sorry calves, and anything else which comes in. I have been told that if I went on Saturday I would be one of the three people who just speak English.
The two sales I attend here sell the few horses, sheep and goats first. Then they sell calves and yearlings. Then pairs and breds unless it is a stock cow special in which case they sell the stock cows ahead of the calves. Cull cows are always last. Starting in September until about February they will run 2,000+ head a week at both sales. I have never seen a pig at either sale. The last Thursday of the month is sheep special at La Grande. There are some big commercial flocks in that area. Sometimes it is a good idea to avoid the front end of that sale. Several hundred sheep. The good thing is they sell sheep in large bunches.
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Must be an IL thing 🤷‍♂️
Ours has a breeding stock sale on the first Tuesday of the month starting at 5pm. Culls are sold Tuesday after the fats so any open "bred" cows sell during the cull sale while all the kill buyers are there.
All the barns around here are small compared to what you have out there . One barn that is actually closest to me but shady as all get out. If they have 250 hd of fdrs it's a fdr special and they are jam packed.
 

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