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| I will tell our experience with a 2 way slide on the Northern video auction last year. We had been buying a ranchers calves from Montana since the 70's-in the fall of 2014 they sold their herd to a neighbor. We bought from the new rancher the calves in 2015-of which 1/2 the calves from the previous genetics and 1/2 from the new cow herd. Under the old regime calves had never weighed more than 635# and the base was set at 635# . Under new management base was set at 650# . We thought maybe he had better cows and bulls and did want to lose the personal contact-so we paid what we thought was fair to upper price on the auction. Low and behold the calves weighed 605# and the trucks were filled to the 62,000#. Slide both ways was great for him but not us! My question to the rancher is when you set your base weight do take your 5 year average or what? When we figure our breakevens we look what our 5 year finished weight and feed conversion among other things. I saw a few sets of calves today listed that they had retained ownership in 19 of the last 21 years-why in a low priced market for calves would you sell as calves vs. finishing them(irrelevant to this discussion). Big question is how do you establish the base weight? Northern video reps are strictly working for cow calf man and Northern. There are 4000 buyers for your calves at this time and only 4 buyers for the finished cattle. I have probably had one too many drinks and lost way too much equity in the last 24 months. I will have to be a sweet heart deal for us to buy again with a 2 way slide which in our minds is slanted one direction. | |
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Northern video auction
