COMMERCIAL BRED HEIFERS SOLD AT AGRIBITION REACHING NEW HEIGHTS

[smcgrath76]

For those who know me, I am definitely
not a fan of the show ring, however I am
a fan of people in general and shows are
a great way to get a lot of cattle
people together. Of all the shows I get
to/have to go to in the course of my
work, I will say that I do enjoy the
commercial show at Agribition the best.
There are some pretty functional cattle
there from regular farms and ranches.
My comments about cattle that fit a
system were not intended to disrespect
anyone's cattle, I just know the cattle
that work here and they don't generally
show up at shows or fit what judges are
looking for in the show ring where
somewhat larger framed cattle tend to do
better.

[smcgrath76]

And I agree with Sadie about condition. A
very wise old PB breeder told me once the
best colour to have when you are selling a
bull is "fat".

[grassfarmer]

Sadie, to be clear it was the show part I was referring to as a hobby not people selling bred or open females.

[farmers_son]

Yes fat sells.

These "name" operations are using purebred sales techniques to market commercial cattle. And their big sales will easily gross over $1 million. Their promotional efforts, and they spend a lot on promotion, are directed towards their big sales and as such Agribition is promotional effort. I believe it is naive to think they would sit back and let their "commercial" cattle go for ordinary prices at Agribition and then have that price known country wide. Yes they are screwed if they get caught jacking up the price of their cattle. That is why they are careful to not get caught.

[SADIE]

A thankyou comment to both Smmcgrath and to grassfarmer. I posted this recent agribition action the Bred Heifer Sale for all agrivillers to see. Allfarmer I believe is in the northern Alberta area. I believe your type is blacks. The Agribition website shows all entries, names of contributer, sire breed and dam bred, weights and breeding dates.

The showing of calves and selling of calves at these show and sales is almost a dead issue now. The market on record seems to slump in Nov and there is not enough entry anymore to attract order buyers when there is issues of trucking, diesel shortage or whatever excuse.

Saskatoon post Fall fair is this Friday and a reality check will be made. Agribition is doing some hard searching also on why their numbers are gone.

COST/ No Price Premium and hobby is right.

I do believe that these will become just a Bulls showing event, and Bred Heifer Sales in the near future.

SmMcgrath--LW is on Dec 9 (Friday)---McQuontock is on Dec 10 and I believe Westmans is just before that in Vermillion.

Can I meet up with you at LW for a coffee Sean?

[SADIE]

farmer-son

Your post came in during my last entry.
I have been and studied it now for 15 years. I have bought and have bought the reputation groups at some very low end prices. I was there when the prices collapsed and I capitalized.

A wise old cattlemen told me years ago.

Buy the Bred Heifer? That is the only way to really know her age. Doesn't matter what you pay for her (In reason) she will grow into her value.

I pregchecked for 20 years at Veteran Auction Barn, Cereal and Provost over that time and many old cows on sileage, big gutted snuck through as young bred cows. Mouthing these babies became habitual and I saw many ranchers get thrown around and hurt doing that practice.

Isnt the base value of any bred animal heifer or cow still current meat prices?

Don't we all when we sell want to protect for that value?

[grassfarmer]

"Buy the Bred Heifer? That is the only way to really know her age."

Coming from the guy that opposes age verification that's priceless lol

[kato]

Interesting thread.

We've bought just about every class of animal over the years, but bred heifers is not among them. Well, ...not exactly, we have bought a couple of purebreds, but only one turned out, so that's not a good measure.

As for buying breds now, I think SADIE's right, and the approach my hubby takes when he's buying feeders is likely the best one. He's persistent. He shows up at all the sales. He stays until the end.. this is very important. And he keeps his eyes open, because sometimes a good one sneaks by. And I do chores when he's gone. LOL

That being said, buying bred cows has always worked best for us when they came from someone's yard. The difference in the number of culls over the first couple of years is astounding.

We want to get the herd back to white again, so rather than keep Limo cross heifers this year, we're going to sell them and have already bought back some good thick bodied Char heifers. They came from two herds, are very identical, and we can develop them and breed them the way we want. This will be the third year we've done this, and it's worked pretty well so far. We bought them while ago, at a lighter weight for a little over $700, and I'm pretty sure we can get them up to being "bred heifers" for less than a thousand dollars. They should make 1300 pound cows, from the looks of them.

There was a discount on the white calves for a few years, but that's gone now. At the sale last week, black heifers of the same size brought 15 cents a pound less than the white ones. Cattle are moving east again, obviously.

[SADIE]

Now on line---Www.canadian western agribition.ca. Go to home page. Results Year, beef, commercial show and results.

The breds, contributor, weights and price with buyers name.

ON another site you could see the full breeding specs on each pen, sire ,dam, weights, birth dates.

I believe it is the first time commercial breds broke $2000.00 ea. I don't even know if they broke $1900.00ea before. The low was a pen of 5 black angus weighing just under 1000 lbs each bringing $1300.00 to the high of $2300 semi/red angus (CONDITION) weighing about 1265 lbs each.

The contributor of the low end cattle were alot of new faces with lighter cattle. The higer end were experienced multi times that run a program and have the condition.

Buying out of a program and at a sale like this the cattle are much quieter and have been worked with. That is important to me as my hair gets flecks of grey or baldness comes on.

[ASRG]

Really good cattle from reputation outfits usually pay in the long run?
Although you have to consider just how much that cows calf will sell for....don't forget she may be the source of a lot of your future cow herd?
When I was a very young man in 1973 I bought a bred PB heifer for $3,000....I don't know what that would be in todays dollars....but I bought a new pickup the same year for $3700!
Today, just about my total cow herd has that cows genetics somewhere in their makeup.
She lived to 17 and only had one bull calf(I used him). Every heifer calf she had was a winner. In reality she was the best buy I ever made.