In the last few years, things have been changing in the cattle industry. These changes have been slowly coming to our area. I haven’t heard anything about them until the last few months. In the last year, these changes are starting to affect the local cattle market.
I was in the cafe at Farmer’s Livestock Auction a couple of weeks ago. While getting a bite to eat I started visiting with a friend, Bill Hancock of Republic, Mo. Mr. Hancock and his son own Hancock Cattle Company. They buy and sell over a quarter million head of cattle every year for several feedlots and other buyers. Mr. Hancock gave me permission to use his name in this article.
The interesting fact is that Mr. Hancock used to be at every sale at Farmer’s Livestock Auction. Sometimes they would also make Washington County and the Siloam Springs sales also. Mr. Hancock and his son have only been to a few sales in this area in the last year or so. The main reason Mr. Hancock is not coming is the fact that he cannot get the cattle his buyers want. All of his buyers want pre-vaccinated and weaned calves. Most of our calves are weaned when we take them to the sale barn. So, if he cannot get those calves here he has to go other places.
I cannot tell you what a loss this is to the barns and you. This man handles over a quarter of a million head of calves per year. That equates to 5,000 head of cattle per week. I have personally seen Bill Hancock buy 250 to 400 head at Farmer’s Livestock Auction in one sale. This clearly makes Mr. Hancock a major player at the sale barns. It is a great loss not to have him there bidding on your cattle.
I also have a local client buying stocker calves and raising them to 800 pounds and then selling to the feedlots. He does not want any of our region's calves, because they are not weaned and vaccinated. The main reason is that they get too sick and there's death loss. The sick ones cost too much in medicine to keep alive and the dead are dead. Clearly these buyers want a better product from us or they are not going to buy from us at all.
I have always heard, "they should pay more for my calves if I am going to wean and process them for them." Well, now they are paying market value for weaned and vaccinated calves and discounting those calves who are not. In other areas of the country they have been doing this for quite some time. Ten years ago I heard about an 800 lb. bull going through the ring in a Western Kansas sale barn and bringing $0.35 per pound below market. Thirty-five cents per pound is quite a discount.
The buyers answer to your question, “How much more are you going to pay me for weaning and processing my calves?” Their answer is to not buy them, or discount these unfinished calves to where the buyers are willing to take the risk. With the cattle market dropping, the buyers want to hedge their bets. They don’t want to risk it with sick calves or the threat of death loss anymore.
What they are wanting is properly vaccinated, dewormed, castrated calves with horns tipped, that have been weaned for 45 to 60 days. They also prefer a third party, such as your veterinarian signing off that all of this has been done to industry standards. Too many of the buyers have gotten burned when a veterinarian hasn’t signed off on a certificate saying these procedures were done, and then the calf got sick.
Yes, this preconditioning will cost a little more, but it is better to get market value and maintain a good reputation, than to lose buyers.
Dr. Tim O'Neill owns Country Veterinary Clinic in Farmington, Ark.
