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A question for buyers and feed yards?

alabama

Well-known member
Will the feed yard pay for small groups with data?

Small producers often are producing some of the better-conditioned cattle but they have to sell them at the local sale barn, as they don’t have a full load. I sometimes take 5 or 6 calves to the sale barn after weaning or yearling weights as I don’t think they are the best for breeding stock. I have all the info on the cattle such as birth date, weaning date and vaccinations. I also know what they have been fed. I also test my calves for BVD so the buyer should be willing to pay more knowing that the calf is not a PI calf.
When they go to the stockyard, they come through the sale ring just like any other calf. What can I do to alert the buyers that the calves are preconditioned and should have more value that a calf weaned on the truck on the way to the sale?
I take a few 5 weight calves at weaning and a few 9 to 10 weight calves at yearling weights.

I would like to see the stockyards mount a screen above the sale ring to post info on the calf as it comes through the ring. An ID tag in the calf could trace to the database in the stockyard computer with all my data on each calf displayed.
How can we make this work such that the stockyard and afford to install and use it?
Can we sell calves just as fast with this sort of system?
Will the buyers trust the data?
Will the buyers pay for a calf that has this data if only 4 or 5 are run through at a time?
 

William Kanitz

Well-known member
We have done this and it works. As the animal comes out of the shute into the sale ring, the Panel reader at the shute sends the data directly to the database and as fast as google the animal with the RFID tag is displayed on the sale ring screen,as the animal enters. Go to this web site; http://www.id-ology.com/ this works nomatter where the animal came from.
 

Texan

Well-known member
Seems like smaller producers that try hard are often the ones that don't get any extra returns for their efforts. It's difficult to get anything done with small numbers simply because buyers have to treat the whole load as if none of them have been vaccinated. All of the calves will basically assume the characteristics of the calves of unknown origin.

One option is to get with some other producers that use the salebarn that you like and approach the market operator with the idea of having a co-mingled sale. Similar to the ones they have at Willard Jordan's and Sulphur Springs Livestock Commission in Texas. I know they also do some in Missouri and I'm sure a lot of other states do, as well. Surely Alabama has some of these type sales, also?

These calves all meet the same health requirements and vaccination protocols and are sorted by size and breed type into truckload lots. A load will have calves from a lot of different producers, but all of the calves are individually weighed so that everybody gets paid for what they produce.

http://www.jordancattle.com/premiumsales.htm

http://www.sslivestockauctions.com/netbio_feeder.asp
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
Texan my dad was one of the first to sort for "Pre-sorted" or "Graded " sales in Canada. When they first started it was mostly hereford calves with a few black and shorthorn. The exotics changed that. The first were in smaller producer owned yards. He also did the first presort at Assinaboia SK. for the previous owner. he also stayed on sorting to help the present owner get started at it. Assinaboia sells close to 10,000 head on their big weeks in the fall run. I remember some of those PRE Presort days when they sold calves all day and night. Now they can have 4,000 hd thru by 3 in the afternoon. It sure helps some of the smaller producers get those load lot prices.
I remember my dad's Cattle buyer brother asking him "How many owners in that load?" Dad say "Does it matter?" Brother said "no they look good." " Dad said 17 owners." That was in a train car load not a pot.
 

alabama

Well-known member
William Kanitz said:
We have done this and it works. As the animal comes out of the shute into the sale ring, the Panel reader at the shute sends the data directly to the database and as fast as google the animal with the RFID tag is displayed on the sale ring screen,as the animal enters. Go to this web site; http://www.id-ology.com/ this works nomatter where the animal came from.

This is the sort of system I was thinking of but the question is will the buyers pay more for calves in this type of system and will the stockyard pay to install it?
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
alabama said:
Will the feed yard pay for small groups with data?

Small producers often are producing some of the better-conditioned cattle but they have to sell them at the local sale barn, as they don’t have a full load. I sometimes take 5 or 6 calves to the sale barn after weaning or yearling weights as I don’t think they are the best for breeding stock. I have all the info on the cattle such as birth date, weaning date and vaccinations. I also know what they have been fed. I also test my calves for BVD so the buyer should be willing to pay more knowing that the calf is not a PI calf.
When they go to the stockyard, they come through the sale ring just like any other calf. What can I do to alert the buyers that the calves are preconditioned and should have more value that a calf weaned on the truck on the way to the sale?
I take a few 5 weight calves at weaning and a few 9 to 10 weight calves at yearling weights.

I would like to see the stockyards mount a screen above the sale ring to post info on the calf as it comes through the ring. An ID tag in the calf could trace to the database in the stockyard computer with all my data on each calf displayed.
How can we make this work such that the stockyard and afford to install and use it?
Can we sell calves just as fast with this sort of system?
Will the buyers trust the data?
Will the buyers pay for a calf that has this data if only 4 or 5 are run through at a time?

The sale barns up here put that information on the sale bill and announce the particulars when the animals enter the ring.
 
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