Kingdom of Callaway - Fulton, Mo 65251 | Doug61 - 2/15/2026 22:36 So what do you think of buying a $22k bull who is a farm's average? I half way know the answer since you came home empty. I had a similarly shocking experience in 2010 but it is a long story. I had 5 bulls sorted out of 450 with a $8-10k budget. These 5 averaged around $100k mostly to well known Angus breeders partnered with an AI stud. I never raised my hand. I was a joke but it was a nicely private one. The rest of the story was a commercial rancher (900 cows) sitting next to me.
HI Doug,
We walked through the day before looking for a heifer bull in case we bought a local string of heifers in the next few months. Last year we bought four bulls at this sale, so we were prepared. Our top choice of the young bulls was number 31, and the top of the older was number 260. We stopped and visited with the owners and they asked what we liked. We gave them those numbers and they kind of looked down at the floor. We all started laughing because we all knew we were not going to get them with our pocketbook! I did bid on a few, but did not get much more than a smell.
At the dinner the night before, we sat down with a really nice couple from Nebraska. We really got along great and had a nice visit. His name was also David, and then another gentleman sat down and his first name was David. The first David asked me what bull number I liked, and we said #31. They started laughing because that was their top pick as well. We sat in front of them at the auction and needless to say, we did not have to bid against each other.
The quality of the bulls was very good. If I had needed a bull right now, I would have paid the $20K for one of those. They had several cheaper ones like down in the $15-$17K area that would have been fine for commercial cattle like ours, but we were only looking for a low birth weight bull.
We had a bull we bought from them last year that we used for a year. We paid $11k or so for him. When we checked him a couple months ago before turn out, his count was low. We called Topps and they said to take him to the local sale barn and pound him out. They let us keep that salvage value, and then also gave us a $6400.00 credit towards another bull. I do not know how you could beat that warranty. Their is a reason they have done so well in the bull business.
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Topp Herefords bull shopping
