Lots of information in this thread. These are my opinions based upon several days of pounding up and down the road looking for steers.
There are a whole lot of club calves being sold this year. Within those club calves are a whole lot of bad cattle. Soundness is at an all time level of bad. One afternoon, I went through approximately 150 club calves. Within that were maybe 15 that I considered to be bullet proof on the soundness side.
These club calves are being fed extremely hard, and the hair quality this year is exceptional. Last year, these cattle were easier to look at because they just didn't have nearly as much hair. My point is, all of this hair is giving the impression that these cattle are much higher quality than they really are if you are only looking at them online.
The $3,000 cattle this year were no-sale cattle last year.
There are some really good deals out there this year, if you are willing to buy one that hasn't haired up yet. We have bought 2, and at this point I would say they likely fall into the top 5 that we have ever owned. Now, we paid as much as we have ever paid for a pair, but both of these calves were bought for about 50% of the amount we estimated them to bring. With that being said, a good deal does not mean stealing one. I got in on several "sleepers", and it is very difficult to sneak up on one. There are just too many sets of eyes on these cattle for steal one.
I have seen more high priced I-80 steers sell this year than I have ever seen. My prediction is a high level of frustration with these steers.
As someone else mentioned, lots of guys are going back to the private phone bid off format. The internet sites charge $2,000 to post the cattle. The commission payback on that $2,000 is $33,500 in sale revenue. Anything over that $33,500 is money in the seller's pocket if they bid them off themselves. I got this right from the "horses mouth" from one of the guys that we bought a steer from. "I have had my last online sale. Every one of these steers was sold to people that I have done business with in the past, families included. I would have sold every one of these calves on my own had I not done the online format."
In my travels, I crossed paths with 2 traders that do significant volume. Not to mention any names, but one is from Oklahoma and the other from Illinois. Both told me that they are handling significantly less cattle this year than they have in the past. They just don't have the time to service families buying $5,000 steers. They will handle the high end calves and for the most part that will be it. A third trader I crossed paths with told me he was only buying cattle that he already had sold. He said he was handling literally ZERO inventory this year.
I feel sorry for the people that are actually trying to make a living producing/trading/selling club calves. There are way to many hobby type of people dabbling in the industry and these dabblers are taking customers from the people trying to do it for a living.
