What Sells Bulls in Kentucky

[Ky hills]

I'm my area of Ky price plays a pretty big part in bull sales. Getting over $1500-1800 will be pretty tough no matter how good the bull is.

Most want to buy a 5-6 month old bull calf for $6-800 and take a chance versus buying a mature semen tested bull for $2000

I can't imagine being that much of a dumb a$$.

not only is it done.....
I have had commercial producers with just cows... buy a decent but from me and then sell the better sons as weanlings to their friends....marketing them as sons of my bull.....had people come and tell me how happy they were with the son of my bull they got from XXX....

I would just tell them to think about how much happier they would be if they had one of my bulls of their own....some would come back later and buy and others kept up the discount route.

had people all the time who wanted to buy a weanling....

the best way I found to combat that is I would point to the weanling bulls and say "Sure....there is probably a $5000 dollar bull in that bunch but I don't yet know which one it is....if you can find him you can buy him today." then I would point to the bulls for sale and say for $$$$ ( the price of the given bull) you can have that one who is ready to go.

No one ever opted to buy the $5000 weanling.

I can imagine that, when you are in the registered business you can have some interesting experiences for sure. When I was, there was a feller come here and said he saw our cows were calving and would I sell him a baby bull calf, that he could raise up for a bull. I did not sell him one, his thinking was he could get it for stockyard calf price. At the very least it would have damaged the cows udder to have done that. Once another feller came by and offered to buy all my bull calves at around 2 months old. He would have even gave me top of the market price, which for me would have been s big pay cut even for that day. He tried and tried to talk me in to selling them. He said now I know you think I would be taking a big risk buying little calves like that they would probably get sick but I will put them on Bovatec. I finally just said they are not for sale at this time.

 

[CattleMan1920]

I can't imagine being that much of a dumb a$$.

not only is it done.....
I have had commercial producers with just cows... buy a decent but from me and then sell the better sons as weanlings to their friends....marketing them as sons of my bull.....had people come and tell me how happy they were with the son of my bull they got from XXX....

I would just tell them to think about how much happier they would be if they had one of my bulls of their own....some would come back later and buy and others kept up the discount route.

had people all the time who wanted to buy a weanling....

the best way I found to combat that is I would point to the weanling bulls and say "Sure....there is probably a $5000 dollar bull in that bunch but I don't yet know which one it is....if you can find him you can buy him today." then I would point to the bulls for sale and say for $$$$ ( the price of the given bull) you can have that one who is ready to go.

No one ever opted to buy the $5000 weanling.

I can imagine that, when you are in the registered business you can have some interesting experiences for sure. When I was, there was a feller come here and said he saw our cows were calving and would I sell him a baby bull calf, that he could raise up for a bull. I did not sell him one, his thinking was he could get it for stockyard calf price. At the very least it would have damaged the cows udder to have done that. Once another feller came by and offered to buy all my bull calves at around 2 months old. He would have even gave me top of the market price, which for me would have been s big pay cut even for that day. He tried and tried to talk me in to selling them. He said now I know you think I would be taking a big risk buying little calves like that they would probably get sick but I will put them on Bovatec. I finally just said they are not for sale at this time.

I would not hesitate for a second to refuse someone a bull for sale. If I don't feel that the animal is going where he will be treated right, and respected, he doesn't leave here. I know that it's not possible to always know that, but you can get a feel when talking to a person what's in store for the bull. Most people spending $3k or more for a bull will take care of them, even if they are working them hard.

Once upon a time, a couple years ago, a guy told me "if a bull doesn't do what I want him to, I can fix that with a metal bar to the face" I wrapped that meeting up seconds later, and told him that nothing we had available was for sale, and walked off. When you are tight with the bulls since birth, a comment like that turns your stomach.

 

[Ky hills]

not only is it done.....
I have had commercial producers with just cows... buy a decent but from me and then sell the better sons as weanlings to their friends....marketing them as sons of my bull.....had people come and tell me how happy they were with the son of my bull they got from XXX....

I would just tell them to think about how much happier they would be if they had one of my bulls of their own....some would come back later and buy and others kept up the discount route.

had people all the time who wanted to buy a weanling....

the best way I found to combat that is I would point to the weanling bulls and say "Sure....there is probably a $5000 dollar bull in that bunch but I don't yet know which one it is....if you can find him you can buy him today." then I would point to the bulls for sale and say for $$$$ ( the price of the given bull) you can have that one who is ready to go.

No one ever opted to buy the $5000 weanling.

I can imagine that, when you are in the registered business you can have some interesting experiences for sure. When I was, there was a feller come here and said he saw our cows were calving and would I sell him a baby bull calf, that he could raise up for a bull. I did not sell him one, his thinking was he could get it for stockyard calf price. At the very least it would have damaged the cows udder to have done that. Once another feller came by and offered to buy all my bull calves at around 2 months old. He would have even gave me top of the market price, which for me would have been s big pay cut even for that day. He tried and tried to talk me in to selling them. He said now I know you think I would be taking a big risk buying little calves like that they would probably get sick but I will put them on Bovatec. I finally just said they are not for sale at this time.

I would not hesitate for a second to refuse someone a bull for sale. If I don't feel that the animal is going where he will be treated right, and respected, he doesn't leave here. I know that it's not possible to always know that, but you can get a feel when talking to a person what's in store for the bull. Most people spending $3k or more for a bull will take care of them, even if they are working them hard.

Once upon a time, a couple years ago, a guy told me "if a bull doesn't do what I want him to, I can fix that with a metal bar to the face" I wrapped that meeting up seconds later, and told him that nothing we had available was for sale, and walked off. When you are tight with the bulls since birth, a comment like that turns your stomach.

That's not my management style either, the only way I would condone that is if your life was in danger from the animal. I have heard those kinds of stories, I like to have my cattle where they will come when I call them. If we have something with a disposition problem they go to hamburger.
I have opted out of a couple of sales where I knew it was a case of intent to turn a young yearling bull out with a large group of cows. I knew that the bull of that age could not do that and did not want that to get talked about as a fault of the bull. I always tried to make it known that Bulls of that age needed to just be with a few. I was always surprised at how many would have turned them out with 30 or 40 cows at just over a year old. I lost some sales but did not want to take those chances

 

[ALACOWMAN]

The stockyard I sell at is right on the border of Kentucky and I`m always amazed that some of the cattle are such poor quality but the guys always have a nearly new $70,000 Power Stroke to haul them in there with. I saw some Charolais being unloaded today that if you painted them white with black spots would`ve passed for poor quality Holsteins. Some of the cattle I`ve seen there have been good quality but those are few and far between yet they still get the best prices for this area. I really think some of these guys just keep one of their bull calves back and let them just run with the cows till he`s old enough to breed them it`s cheaper that way is what they would say or they may just get their bulls from cousin Billy Bob or some other dip wad down the road who knows. It seems there`s a lot of the that's how Dad and Grandpa did it and it was good enough for them so It`s good enough for me thinking. Most wouldn`t have a clue what EPD`s are or care to learn and I don`t see that changing anytime soon. I have a small herd of 25 cows and most of the calves are A.I sired because I`m always trying to improve my herd and I want to be proud of the calves I sell whether they`re being sold as breeding stock or just going to the sale barn if I ever had to sell calves that looked like the calves I saw today I would just quit raising cattle completely.

course I don't know the whole situation there.. but here, this winter we've had, ain't exactally been too cattle friendly ..lotta cattle showing it too..