Lekey Livestock Auction has been serving buyers and sellers since 2010
BILLINGS, MO. – When Lyle Tatum and Kelly Emerson decided to get away from the horse business, they had to figure out what to do with their horse barn.
With backgrounds in the livestock and livestock auction industries, they converted the barn and arena into an auction facility, and in 2010, Lekey Livestock Auction held its first sale.
“The horse market wasn’t that good, so we looked at different avenues and decided to put the barn to work,” Lyle said. “We were really gung-ho about it. Kelly and I have done most of it by ourselves, other than neighbors and friends helping us out. Some people who helped us build are still working with us.”
Lekey Livestock Auction is a general livestock and farm auction.
Everything from equipment to small animals, cattle to horses is sold on the first Saturday of each month at the Billings, Mo., sale. Buyers and sellers from the Billings area and from across Southwest Missouri are drawn to the unique sale, as are those from Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas.
“We want to focus on agriculture. It’s taken us a while to grow, but we are getting there,” Lyle said.
Sale days at Lekey Livestock start at 10 a.m., with miscellanies and farm machinery. The sale then goes into the barn for poultry and caged animals before moving onto cattle, sheep and goats, hogs. The sale ends with horses and other equine.
“Depending on the time of year, we have 75 to 200 sheep and goats, then we will have a good number of hogs,” Lyle said. “We will have 500 to 3,500 head of poultry in the spring when we are flooded with poultry, and the markets are the best.”
Trends in the sheep industry are favoring the haired sheep market.
“Wool sheep are actually getting pretty sparse in this area,” Lyle said, adding that one of the largest runs was about 300 head of sheep and goats.
On the cattle side, Lyle said runs include baby calves, feeder and finished cattle, and some weight cattle.
“Once in a while, we will have a dispersal of 25 to 100 cows,” he said. “We have had as many as 120 head of cows in the barn.”
Lekey Livestock starts receiving livestock after 3 p.m. on Fridays before the monthly sale. On sale day, Lyle again starts taking in livestock at about 5:30 a.m.
“We start at 10 (a.m.), and we sell until we are done,” he explained. “We don’t have a set time for anything unless we have an advertised special. It will depend on how big the run is, but at the last sale, Kelly and I got done at about 10:30 (p.m.).”
Reuben Schrock and auctioneers from Oklahoma and other areas will conduct the sale’s auction. Lyle said he would occasionally take the gavel.
Lekey Livestock is also licensed to sell exotic animals.
“We get a handful of those occasionally,” Lyle said. “We might have llamas, miniature donkeys, zebu cattle, and we’ve had Beefalo, all kinds of animals.”
Lyle and Kelly said most of their customers are smaller-scale producers and those with homesteads.
“They don’t have to deal with the bigger-end market situations, and those can be kind of scary for a smaller farmer,” Lyle said. “We want to stay up close and personal with the needs of our customers, try to keep up with the markets, and explain everything we can,”
The couple said being a smaller sale allows them to focus on customers, including transporting livestock to and from the auction if needed.
On-the-farm visits are also available.
“I’ll grade their livestock and do what they need me to do,” Lyle said. “I try to help people pick out rams, goats, bulls for their herds and help all we can.”
Being a smaller sale also had some advantages when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“It really boosted our sales, and we were blessed with more business,” Lyle said. “I know it sounds like a horrible thing to say with the situation it was, but we had a lot of business. We had people who wanted a handful of chickens, some sheep or goats, or maybe a calf to raise. I guess people wanted to be a little more independent.”
Commission rates differ depending on what is sold, and Kelly said they are upfront about those rates, which also helps those who may be new to their type of auction.
Putting a former horse barn to work is not the only benefit of opening the LeKey Livestock Auction for Lyle and Kelly.
“We enjoy the people,” Kelly said. “We meet a lot of unique people. There are usually 85 to 200 people here at every sale.”
“It can get a little tight sometimes, and if people want to look at something, they might have to shuffle in and out, but we have a good-sized barn and make room,” Lyle said.
Kelly and Lyle said their business continues to grow, but they don’t want to become so big that they lose the personal attention they can give each buyer and seller.
“We like it the way it is right now,” Lyle said. “We’ve looked into several other options and have people asking us all the time when we are going to have two sales a month or when we are going to have a cow sale. We’re to the point that as long as much as we’re growing and as long as our Saturdays are lasting, we’re looking at branching into a different direction later on, but not right now. People have come to us wanting us to do exotic and horse sales, but it’s working right now.”
“We knew it would take us a little while to get established,” Kelly added. “We have gone through some changes, but we are extremely happy and wouldn’t want it to grow any faster. Our people are happy, and we can keep up with it. It’s been great.”
