Ozarks Regional Stockyards celebrates their 30th anniversary

Driving any of southern Missouri’s or northern Arkansas’ two-lane highways on Tuesday morning, heading to West Plains, can be a lesson in patience for many. Why you ask? Everyone knows Tuesday is “trailer” day and it has been for the last 30 years.
Ozarks Regional Stockyards opened for its first sale in 1983 and has been selling cattle from southern Missouri and northern Arkansas producers ever since then. Now they have feeder calf sales on Tuesday beginning around 8:30 a.m. and Wednesdays are the cow and bull auction beginning at noon.
They celebrated 30 years with a “Surprise Party” for the buyers and sellers on July 9 and 10. “We served barbecue beef sandwiches with all the sides,” explained Mickey Walker, office staff.

Current Operations
Owners Rick and Randy Hoover, grew up in the West Plains area in Howell County, and have operated the barn since its beginning. Randy is on site and works in the ring for each sale. Rick is in charge of the back of the barn and takes care of the maintenance.
“Depending on the weather and the markets, our average feeder calf sales are around 3,000 on Tuesdays,” Randy explained. “We have about 700 bulls and cows weekly,” he added.
“Of course weather on sale day and prolonged weather patterns affect the sale. The last few summers during the drought, our numbers have actually been up,” he explained. “We had buyers coming for cowherds from other parts of the country that had more rain and producers here had to cut back the numbers in their herds. They either had to sell or buy hay and some had to do both, sell some cows to buy hay for the animals they were able to keep.”
Overall though the prices stayed relatively steady and didn’t drop too low according Ozarks Regional Stockyards records. “There were a few down weeks here and there, but overall it wasn’t too bad of a market,” added Randy.

Recent Improvements
“Of course we’ve been painting the pens and working on that part of the barn seems like an ongoing process,” explained Randy, “but a very recent upgrade is the sprinklers we’ve put in for the cattle. During the hottest part of the summer here in southern Missouri, it can get pretty warm out there, so we we’ve added the sprinklers to help keep the animals cooler as they wait for their turn in the ring or their turn to be loaded out,” he said.
Last April the seats were replaced in the auction barn. “We have local order buyers and some of them have to be here all day, so we hope it’s not too uncomfortable to be here,” Randy smiled.
Over the years, they’ve added more pen area to reach the capacity they are at now. “We’ve had as many as almost 7,000 head here at a time and we have the space,” said Randy. “We also have outside pens and small paddocks we can keep cattle in if they need to be here for more than one night before they are sold or shipped out.”

Employees and Operations
Dr. Ryan Grant from Oklahoma is the veterinarian for the stockyards. “He brings at least one person with him to help with the paperwork and his wife has also been around helping with this,” explained Randy. “He filled in last year when our vet was out and in January the opportunity opened for him to work with us at each sale. He’s a younger vet and works well with our staff and the buyers and sellers seem to appreciate him.”
If sellers want, he will perform pregnancy checks on the cows and he writes all the health papers for the animals that leave the stockyards headed across state lines. “He’s been great to work with and we’re glad to have him on board with us,” added Randy.
According to Randy, Ozarks Regional Stockyards currently employs about 25 people. “We have all those in the office and in the barn, and of course we have a restaurant that is open during the sale also. We’ve got a good group of people working for us here. We’ve had 30 years of cattle come and go through here and we look forward to many, many more.
“We live in ‘cattle country’ so it only makes sense to have a stockyards/sale barn right here in the middle of it all.”

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