Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Cattle Sales the 21st Century Way

This past Sunday was the Star Lake fall sale. With our family becoming good friends over the past year, we were wanting to watch part of the sale and see how it was going to go. The problem is that it is just not economical to fly to Oklahoma for a few hours to watch a sale.

Now thanks to companies like Live Auctions, and Cattle In Motion, we are able to watch and bid on sales that we are not able to attend. These companies are hired by the sales to do a live video feed of the sale. Those people who cannot attend can either just watch the sale, or they can make bids on animals that are selling!

The sales start with a sale order. If you are at the sale you would pick one of these up and follow along so you know where each animal sells in the sale. Since we were not at the sale we printed ours out to follow along.


On the sale order there many be notes about each lot. On the Star Lake one there was updated weights as well as some terms of the sale for each animal. This particular one they were selling only part of the bull. It is important to know what you are buying before hand so that there is no confusion between the buyer and the seller.

Once you have reviewed the catalog and the sale order the sale will be next. Each company does it differently, but this is Star Lake's sale that was done through Live Auctions. A camera is set up so that you can get a view of the ring. You can see the animal and the auctioneer and there is also sound so you can hear what is happening as well.

The price will change as the people both online and at the sale make their bids. This one is lot 108 and the next bid they were asking for was $9250.00! I think this bull ended up selling for $15,250.00

It was a great sale that the Blin's had. They averaged over $8000 on the females and $7300 on the bulls. This is excellent, and a true testament to how hard the crew works at Star Lake.

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