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| We branded calves yesterday and had an Easter dinner for extended family. Just a few thoughts on shipping, weighing conditions from thread below on video auctions. For years we always sent our replacement heifers out to be custom fed for us, as we didn't have the room or feed for them when I had the dairy. Same farm custom fed for us over 30 years, great service. However, one year they ran out of alfalfa hay for their ration. So, we sold them good bright hay, they had been on that feed for 60 days.
It came springtime, we were in a drought, no grass growing. It was down to the wire I didn't' have room for those heifers if I was going to keep our beef cow herd numbers. So, I wanted to pull the plug on those heifers before markets really tanked. I never had intentions to sell them earlier. They had been on my hay and ration that would have been fed at home place. So, we planned ahead, trucked those heifers home 40 miles to our place. dry lotted them for about 4 days. Then trucked them to sale barn two days before the sale.
We had taken a live weight on those heifers at the feedlot before leaving. Then only weight we took was sale date, it was one heck of a hit on scale weight. Quite more than a shrink of standing penned waiting sale hour. Markets had turned down that spring, with pending drought. Sold them, I ended up feeding those cattle for free all winter. Got same price as I would have received as weaned calves in fall per head. I wish I would have kept those weigh tickets, so I had those numbers today.
Ended up in a few weeks we started to get rain, and it never stopped. We had more feed than we had ever seen that time of year. If I would have kept those heifers and bred them for fall sale I'd made bank on them. My intentions were to keep them for myself. The point I'm stating is cattle on same feed, different water but moving those heifers in a weeks' time. I'm sure some of them were cycling, but it was a big hit on pay weight.
So, when guys talk of shrink and its real, there's not a calf buyer I know that doesn't factor that in relation to their trucking great distance. They know by the hour how much shrink they take per hour on the truck, then back figure the pay weight the day of the sale. it's a real figure and expense. Fine line you walk not to over fill a calf before sale hour, but calf needs to be kept healthy to handle a weighing day and trucking long miles. That's why a vaccination program and preconditioning program is so important so calf can handle the stress of a winter storm on those calves stuck on blizzard in road.
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Hope you all have a happy Easter
