Life among the Tall Pines: Two for the sale

Thursday, April 09, 2020

Two for the sale

This morning I took several of my cattle to the livestock auction to sell. I took cow #80, the cow that lost her calf last month. She was one of the three cows I had planned to sell last Fall before my accident put the selling plans on hold. Since 80 lost her calf last month there is no reason to wait to sell her. The other two cows I plan on selling recently had calves so their sale will wait till later this year once their calves get bigger.

Since I had some extra room in the stock trailer, and since this sale was a cow and feeder cattle sale, I took one of the steers. Steer #55. The next cow and feeder cattle sale is in two weeks and I plan to take the rest of last years calves to that sale.

Usually I take the calves a day before the auction and pay the auction to store and feed the cattle overnight. This time I took the cattle the morning of the auction as the auction doesn't start the sale now until 11 am. To make the cattle loading quicker I prepared mostly the night before. I put the cattle in the loading ramp part of the corral the night before. I hooked up the trailer to the pickup, tested the lights and checked the tires' pressure. This morning at 6:30 am all I had to do was drive the trailer into the corral, back it up to the loading ramp, and load the cattle.

The loading went smooth and quick. I put the cow in the front half of the trailer, closed the dividing gate, and put the calf in the back of the trailer. I was on the road by 7:08 am. I was down to the auction in Missoula by 9:30 am. Since the auction was a feeder sale in addition to a cattle sale, and the auction claimed some people said they were going to bring a few hundred head of cattle, I expected that I would have to wait in line to unload my cattle. But there was no other stock trailers when I arrived. By the time I finished unloading my cattle there were two stock trailers waiting to unload their cattle next.

I didn't see or hear many cattle in the holding pens so maybe the sellers didn't bring their hundred of calves to sell. I'll find out once I later get the auction listing of what cattle were sold. Once I unloaded my cattle I headed back home. Even though I only had two cattle in my trailer on the drive to Missoula I could feel the weight I pulled. Driving home the trailer felt light and the driving went quicker. I was home by noon.

My pickup was the cleanest I can remember. Donna helped me load the cattle and then rode with me to Missoula and back. She wanted to ride in a clean pickup, not a dirty and dust covered inside-and-out pickup. The previous day she spent quite a bit of effort and cleaned my pickup inside and out.

I am happy to get rid of cow 80 as, since she was one of the larger cows, she was a bully to many of the other cattle. Also she wanted to eat the hay chaff and seeds over the hay itself. She figured out which feeder I swept the remaining hay into and always she would initially go to that feeder. To get to the chaff and fine stuff cow 80 would use her head to push out the hay from the feeder so she could lick all the chaff from the feeder. This annoyed the heck out of me, especially when the ground was wet and mud. That hay would somewhat get ruined and uneaten by getting wet and muddy.

Calf 55 was also annoying at times. Instead of just standing at a feeder to eat hay, he preferred to stand with his front legs in the feeder and on the hay to eat the hay. Muddy hooves made muddy hay.

Now in a few days I will find out how much my cattle weighed and how much they sold for.

Once I got home I washed the manure out of the trailer and cleaned it and the trailer's floor mats.

I forgot to take photos of cow 80 and calf 55. I did take photos of the mountains and lake seen during the drive.