Frustrating auction

Today Dan and I drove down to Missoula to attend the big feeder cattle auction.  I had hope of buying ten head of cattle.  The grass is not growing yet but I have plenty of hay to feed them.

We got to the auction after it started but that was alright as they were selling slaughter cows first.  We tried to walk through the cattle holding pens but we didn't get very far.  People were still bringing cattle to the sale and these cattle had to be moved through the aisles to their holding pen.   Then when we were in another aisle the livestock handlers moved a large group of cattle and suddenly we had a herd of cattle trying to get past us.   We gave up trying to check the holding pens out and went inside to the auction.

Because I planned to hire Evan to haul the cattle I needed to make sure I had ten head of cattle to make it worthwhile to justify the cost of transporting them.  What came through the ring were large groups of cattle (98 head, 63 head, 29 head, etc.) or the number of cattle were 4 or 3 or 2 or 1.  There were some groups of four or 3 or 1 that were good cattle but since I wasn't able to check all the holding pens out I didn't know if there were any more good cattle in the weight range I want that were coming through the ring.  I didn't want to get stuck with hauling only 3 or 4 cattle.

In the end I got no cattle though in hindsight I could have build a herd of ten head with quality cattle.  I was very frustrated by the end of the auction.

There is another large feeder sale on April 12 so I have another opportunity to buy a herd.

The prices for cattle are higher but the prices today weren't as high as had been listed for recent sales.  Some cattle at the lighter end of my desired weight range had been going over $2 a pound and all cattle sold today were well under that price range.   Even so cattle are selling for good prices.  The 98 head of cattle weighed a little under 80,000 pounds and a rough calculation of the total price based on the price per pound put the total sale price at over $105,000.   One person (a cattle buyer most likely representing a feedlot) bought the entire herd of 98.

Here is the view as Dan and I drove back from Missoula.  These are the Mission Mountains.

When we got to my driveway a large flock of almost twenty wild turkeys were in milling around the driveway entrance.  They slowly moved out of the way.

Eventually they moved from the yard to the fruit tree and garden area.  The larger turkeys could not squeeze through the fence and had to hop/fly to the top of the fence where they wobbled until they could hop back down to the ground on the other side of the fence.