To Market To Market….

Today on this cold, cold morning the cattle truck pulled into our yard to pick up our yearling calves to haul to the sale barn.  The temperature was –2 with a light wind so it was bitterly cold outside. 



The trucker backs up to the alleyway where the calves will get into the truck   - this truck called a “Pot” has two levels to carry the calves.  In house terms it has an upstairs and a downstairs!  We are selling the calves tomorrow at a sale barn a couple of hours away from here and we hire a truck and driver to take them to the sale barn since we don’t have anything large enough.  The sale barn likes to have as many of the cattle they will sell there on sale day early so that is why we had them hauled today.  The calves will be unloaded in pens and fed and watered today and in the morning so they are well treated.

We are selling 85 calves and they will all be hauled in this one truck.  (We are keeping 12 heifers to become cows – John picked out ones with good “cow” qualities.)  This sale barn will auction our calves along with over 6000 others tomorrow.  If you would like to watch a live cattle auction check out the following web page.  CattleUSA.com  Just register to view, there is no charge to register but just an id and password.  After logging in you can find an auction on Wed. (tomorrow) and click to view the sale.  This web page has lots of livestock auctions across the USA that are held on different days of the week. 

If you had approval to purchase you could actually buy online.  I don’t know how that works but know you have to have personal financial verification to purchase.  If you have never viewed a live cattle auction you might find it interesting.

It always amazes me how fast the auctioneer talks and how fast each pen of cattle are sold.  John is going out to watch them sell but I plan to stay home and watch online.  He will call when they are ready to come in the ring so I don’t have to sit all day looking at the computer screen.  We will both be glad when they are sold and we know what price we get for them.  It has taken a whole year from the time they were born to raise them to this point where we can sell them and hopefully make a profit. 

 

The truck is loaded and heading out of the yard and down the highway.  This afternoon we had some soft snow fall but it should not accumulate according to the weather website.

Lynn