During the winter, I picked up a new addiction—watching cattle sales broadcast over satellite TV. On those cold, icy afternoons, I’d check my favorite channel and if there was a cattle sale broadcast airing that day, I would simply rationalize that all my cattle had been checked and fed and that I deserved an afternoon at the “sale barn.” My new-found sale barn, however, had better heat, a reclining chair and free refreshments. The only drawbacks were the absence of cigar smoke, the inability to visit with my neighbors and the constant wondering of whether the auctioneer was actually getting the bids or simply running up the price on some poor sap on the other end of a telephone line.
While I enjoy watching purebred sales at prestigious ranches from all over the country, my preference lies in observing the sales of feeder calves and commercial cows, since that is my livelihood. I’ve also found that it gives me a pretty good idea of what my cattle will be worth when they reach those same delivery dates, based on quality and location. In my mind, this satellite TV thing is important enough to my business that it should be a tax deductible expense on 1040 F. I hope the Internal Revenue Service agrees.
A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to turn on that channel and discover that they were actually having a rare Saturday sale. Since it was raining and I really couldn’t do anything outside (forget that I needed to be working in the shop getting all the hay equipment ready for the season) I once again talked myself into watching the sale.
This sale, however, was not your ordinary breeding bull or feeder calf sale—it was a nationally televised auction of bucking bull stock. Since I had never attended an auction of young, untried bucking bulls as well as quite an assortment of bred cows and cow-calf pairs of genetically proven bucking stock, I called my neighbor down the road to see if he wanted to come and watch with me. Being an old cowboy himself, Joe Bill showed up before the coffee was made.
Folks, I’ve been to a goat-roping, lots of county fairs and a demolition derby once, and I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. They proceeded to show, on tape, the oddest assortment of bovines the likes of which I’ve never seen– ugly, long-eared, rail-thin, multicolored cows with calves beside them that only their mothers could love. It seemed the weirder-colored they were, the more they brought. These pitiful excuses for cows were bringing ten times what my commercial cows are worth. My interest was more than piqued.
Joe Bill observed that the pen where the taping had taken place was constructed of six-inch steel pipe for posts, three-inch steel pipe for the rails, at least seven feet tall, and still the cows and their calves were trying to go through, over and under the containment system. Every once in a while, some old cow would spot the poor soul running the camera and head toward the movie-maker. Not surprisingly, the picture would fade to black and the picture would loop to the thirty seconds we had just watched—and the price being bid would jump dramatically. Evidently, the meaner the cows are, the more that adds to their value as well.
My neighbor wondered aloud why the ID tags on the cows and calves were so extraordinarily large. Both of us surmised that one would need to be able to read the tag from quite a distance in order to keep on breathing. At the conclusion of the broadcast, I commented to my friend, “I can’t believe they’re getting these prices. Have you ever seen a herd of uglier and meaner cows in your life?”
Slowly, Joe Bill rose from his seat and walked over to the window. Gazing out over my west pasture at a group of “economy” cattle I’d recently purchased, he paused and answered, “Yep!”
Jerry Crownover farms in Lawrence County. He is a former professor of Agriculture Education at Missouri State University, and is an author and professional speaker. To contact Jerry about his books or to arrange speaking engagements, go to www.ozarksfn.com and click on contact us.
