This Week' Feeder Sale

[Stocker Steve]

Bidding was inconsistent. I asked the order buyer next to me what was up? He said "no one is sure what they are worth".

I sold some 3 way May/June Balancer sired steers there. They averaged 697# at $245, or $1708 per head.
I sold some May/June British White steers there. They average 660# at $2.00, or $1330 per head.
I sold some May/June straight Angus steers there. They average 512# at $271, or $1388 per head.

So a $378 difference... The buyers seemed to really like Balancers this week.

 

[Toad]

If the angus steers were the same age and 185 lb lighter that may have been the difference? I would have to guess the heaver steers looked better? Either way I would have been happy.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I would have to guess the heaver steers looked better?

The balancer steers were mainly out of wf cows, which are more fertile with about 80% calving in the first 21 days. So on average they were perhaps 10 days older than the straight breds. The F1 cows are also a tad bigger. I thought about weighing the cows to calculate a weaning wt. % :cboy: but that will have to wait till next year.

The balancer X steers were 1/4 Herf and 1/4 GV, which gave them more bone and a framy look. The straight angus looked more like Pharo cattle. :shock: Value of gain between the 5 wt. and the 7 wt. groups was $1.73 per pound.

 

[Taurus]

It also depends on who's at the sale barn and when. Few first groups of feeder calves tends to get few dollars higher than the groups that arrived later. I take it that you don't took them to Motley because British white calves doesn't do very well at there. None of them hit higher than $800.

 

[Craig]

Sold a couple yesterday, nothing fancy, but decent. Brought 2.03 @ 641lb. They posted sale results saying 5-7 weights were running 2.20- 2.87. Not sure where 2.03 fits in to that price range. I think I should have held on to them for another month at that price. Oh well. They sold over 1700 head.

 

[Son of Butch]

Brought 2.03 @ 641lb. They posted sale results saying 5-7 weights were running 2.20- 2.87. Not sure where 2.03 fits in to that price range.

Most Minnesota Sales Barns seem to like only posting top end sale ranges.
A lot of decent cattle sell lower and it makes it darn hard for buyers to buy off the farm because sellers too often have
unrealistic expectations when they check the posted prices.

 

[Gateboy]

I find it quite annoying when I take a load of calves to our local barn, and then some of the calves don't fit anywhere in the published report. That makes me wonder about the rest of the report.

I didn't go to the sale this week, but a couple of guys who did seemed to think calves were up a bit over last week, when they dropped some.

 

[MudHog]

My grandfather and I sold 3 calfs on Tuesday.

My red steer was 370 lbs and went for $295. My grandfather's 380 lbs black steer went for $280 and his 340 lbs heifer went for $240.

 

[shortybreeder]

I sold some calves on the 23rd, one of them that stood out was a chromed up purebred shorthorn steer calf that I had bottle-fed and struggled with for far too long... Came in at just over 500lbs, all his life he was coughing and wheezing and he was 8 months old to barely break 500lbs (grainfed from 2 weeks old because he was put with the holstein heifers) plus he was born with a genetic defect (digital subluxation for those of you familiar) we gave him some Mycotil a while back which seemed to help with the coughing and he still brought almost $1100... Almost everything that could've been wrong with him was wrong with him, yet someone still paid over $1000 for him... Sure made me glad I stuck with him! Though we were still a bit sad to see him go because he was basically a pet...