Monday, August 12, 2013

Buh - Bye

Today we shipped our open replacement heifers to the sale yard. The truck got here at 7:30am. Our driver brought the big trailer, which was over kill, but whatever. They all fit! If we had known he was bringing the big one, we could have put a few of our cull bulls on there. Got to the sale yard at 9:00am. The heifers sat at the yard for 4 1/2 hours! Not good. They lost 30 pounds each just standing there! I wish I could do that! :) But the people at the sale yard were kind enough to write us a check for shrink. They weighed 1025 pounds right before they got on the truck. Weighed 996 pounds going through the ring at the sale. Pretty fit girls for 18 months old. They are going to an all natural feed lot in Montana. All natural meaning they have not been given hormones or antibiotics.

Here's the girls waiting in a pen at our corrals.




The scales and the loading dock leading to the truck.



I am standing where the cattle go into the trailer.




A look inside the trailer. Nice and clean! Won't be that way long! There's an upstairs, middle part and down stairs.



Here's their ride to the sale.




The sale ring.




Buh - Bye girls.



An unusual sight for me. The sunrise! Turned out to be a sunny, hot day!


Thanks for stopping by.



11 comments:

  1. wow that was very interesting. They are pretty good sized girls for 18 mo. I didn't know about the shrinkage---yeah--I wish I could stand around and lose weight. I guess you all got a pretty good check. M

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  2. Oh we will be having a trailer drive into our yard soon too, after the darn haying that never quits is done. I am pretty sure we are shipping all our stockers and some cull cows.
    It is great your cows are going to Montana sounds like my kinda place all natural and all.
    I hate when they are made to wait and shrink it is hard on them. Great shots. B

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  3. They really lose 30 pounds just standing there? That is amazing! I had no idea. So interesting.

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  4. It's amazing how big the pots are, triple triples! Sounds like your heifers did well to weigh over 1,000 in early August, awesome. A good job behind you.

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  5. This is a part of our food production that most people never get to see. Thanks for telling us about it. Yes, it was a little overkill on the cattle liner!

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  6. Oh my heart is hurting. I know it's dumb, but I actually feel sorry for your cattle, knowing what's gonna happen to them eventually. Bet you can't tell I don't live on a ranch eh?

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  7. Nice you got paid for the shrink. Very nice set of pens you have there.

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  8. I am with you on the weight loss wish. It would help if I didn't like to cook AND eat. Ah well! Randy is jealous of your loading pens.

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  9. Interesting post...hope you got a good price for them.

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  10. Good for us to see this...for many people probably don't. Interesting post as always my friend.

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  11. I used to work at a cattle auction market, and I'm pretty sure they never wrote checks for shrinkage. Most of the cattle would arrive the night before and be put in big feed pens, and be sorted into groups in the morning. Those that arrived the morning of the sale would stand in the pens for hours. I actually enjoyed that job, even if I was a lowly alley runner!

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Thanks for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the ranch.