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Tips on buying feeder steers at auction
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<blockquote data-quote="BC" data-source="post: 1026470" data-attributes="member: 67"><p>First off, welcome to cattle today. Before I or anyone else can really help you we need to know what part of the world you operate in. My advice would be based on conditions here in East Texas which may or may not be applicable to your situation. </p><p></p><p>I buy cattle a couple of days a week for other people. The notion that the animals going through an auction are mostly culls is dead wrong. An auction brings buyers and sellers together. The average cow herd in Texas is something like 31 or 32 head. Not big enough to sell directly off the farm to a stocker or feeder operator who deals in truckload lots (48,000 lbs of same sex, weight and quality animals) unless you have a niche market. Here in Texas, most sale barns sell them one at a time. Order buyers will sit through sales buying cattle one at a time (occasionally there will be groups) that fit the specifications of the orders they are trying to fill. Some of the bigger order buying firms will have buyers at 6 to 10 sales everyday (5 to 6 days a week). These cattle are brought to the company's receiving pens and held until a truckload of the same order is put together to be shipped to the customer who placed an order.</p><p></p><p>If you are not familiar with buying at an auction, I really suggest you go watch several sales before you buy to make yourself familiar with how things work. You will probably save yourself some money by finding a local order buyer to make your purchases. I see too many part timers get caught up and pay more than they wanted to because they can not understand the auctioneer or get caught up in an adrenalin rush and don't know when to sell out. Another common problem I see is not being able to guess the weight as you are buying as most sales here weigh the animal as it leaves the ring. Had a friend who was putting some Brangus heifers together. He had them from 500 to 715 lbs, not very uniform. Buying commission varies depending on services provided (buying, hauling, processing, medicine, etc).</p><p></p><p>You never mentioned what type of cattle you were wanting to buy? Are you wanting to start with cows (open, bred or pairs) or calves and grow your herd?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BC, post: 1026470, member: 67"] First off, welcome to cattle today. Before I or anyone else can really help you we need to know what part of the world you operate in. My advice would be based on conditions here in East Texas which may or may not be applicable to your situation. I buy cattle a couple of days a week for other people. The notion that the animals going through an auction are mostly culls is dead wrong. An auction brings buyers and sellers together. The average cow herd in Texas is something like 31 or 32 head. Not big enough to sell directly off the farm to a stocker or feeder operator who deals in truckload lots (48,000 lbs of same sex, weight and quality animals) unless you have a niche market. Here in Texas, most sale barns sell them one at a time. Order buyers will sit through sales buying cattle one at a time (occasionally there will be groups) that fit the specifications of the orders they are trying to fill. Some of the bigger order buying firms will have buyers at 6 to 10 sales everyday (5 to 6 days a week). These cattle are brought to the company's receiving pens and held until a truckload of the same order is put together to be shipped to the customer who placed an order. If you are not familiar with buying at an auction, I really suggest you go watch several sales before you buy to make yourself familiar with how things work. You will probably save yourself some money by finding a local order buyer to make your purchases. I see too many part timers get caught up and pay more than they wanted to because they can not understand the auctioneer or get caught up in an adrenalin rush and don't know when to sell out. Another common problem I see is not being able to guess the weight as you are buying as most sales here weigh the animal as it leaves the ring. Had a friend who was putting some Brangus heifers together. He had them from 500 to 715 lbs, not very uniform. Buying commission varies depending on services provided (buying, hauling, processing, medicine, etc). You never mentioned what type of cattle you were wanting to buy? Are you wanting to start with cows (open, bred or pairs) or calves and grow your herd? [/QUOTE]
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