This month I have attended several bull sales with clients.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For people who enjoy cattle, it’s one of the pleasures of the job.
Prices for bulls have been high. Perhaps not unexpected, since cattle prices are so good at the moment.
My commercial clients usually try to get a bull for $5000 to $6000. This year they’ve had to increase the budget by $1000.
Looking at bulls with clients is great fun. But it is about understanding just what the producer’s breeding objective is.
I spent a day with one Poll Hereford commercial breeder at a Hereford sale. As it turned out the bull we bought was exactly what we wanted, and for the budgeted price.
What did we do? The bulls we selected to look at had to lift or maintain the genetic level of the traits we were interested in. This is what differentiates what buyers want, and why most of the good bulls are sold.
With the sale catalogue in hand, a month before the sale, we sorted out what bulls of the one hundred that were there, we wanted to look at.
Using only catalogued information we started to reduce numbers.
The bull had to be homozygous polled. We do not want the horn gene in this herd. The poll gene test has been a breakthrough.
We then created a range of desirable EBVs for the fifteen traits available. This left us with only a couple to look at! We were obviously being tough, but it’s a good way to start.
Next we opened up our range for a couple of the less vital traits.
With 15 bulls now available to suit us, we ranked them on the selection index most appropriate to our herd. We would look at the most profitable first.
This gave us a list in the order we would inspect the bulls.
We had done our homework and headed to the sale.
Tumbarumba is a beautiful area, and looking at cattle in that environment is one of the pleasures of life.
We got there in time to give us three hours of inspection.
Over-kill? Not really when you’re investing in the herd’s genetic future – the decision has to be right.
Every bull on our list suited our genetic needs. The selection index EBV determined the price we would pay. We could pay our maximum price for the highest profit EBV bull, and related all others to this.
The inspection ended up halving the bulls we were interested in buying.
Why? Each bull had to pass our acceptable level for the visual traits.
These are those traits we assessed in order:
- Temperament – my clients are in their seventies.
- Fertility – large testicles, measured and assessed by a veterinary inspection.
- Structurally sound – mainly feet and legs.
There was a surprising amount of variation in these three no compromise traits. We didn’t compromise.
Lastly we looked for appropriate maturity pattern (frame size and muscularity), eyes, sheath and how well the bull walked.
We were left with six bulls out of the original one hundred.
Before the sale started we sat down with a coffee and confirmed our maximum price for each bull. We ensured every bull in the catalogue had a note written next to it why the bull suited or not.
The show began. We missed a couple of bulls because they were too expensive for us.
We quietly congratulated the auctioneer for making every bull look good, and thanked the almighty we had written notes in our catalogue.
We ‘stuck to our guns. The bull we bought was in the last one third of the group. I could see my clients starting to get uneasy – what if we missed them all?
Our new bull would not be used until November – I assured them there will be plenty more suitable sales before then.
We bought one of the youngest bulls in the sale.
He didn’t look impressive but he met all our criteria.
We knew he would grow into something pretty special.