Blog Archive February 2011

Mobile visitors to this site were up 470% over last year.

The amount of users accessing this site via iPhones, iPads, Blackberrys, or iPods (I didn't even know that's possible) were all up anywhere from 100% to 600%.  Android phones increased a whopping 1,692% over last February.

For the time period February 1st to Feburary 28th.

1. Steerplanet 34.7%
2. Cattle-Today 33.2%
3. Ranchers.net 21.8%
4. Advantage Cattle Services 6.6%
5. Clubcalves 1.8%
6. 5BarX 1.7%
7. Breedersworld 0.1%
8. EDJE 0.1%

While we may have the wait nine months for the quite predictable long term impact of snowmageddon 2011, the imediate impact of the horrendous February weather is a record level of traffic on cattle forums.  February came in at 855 posts per day across the eight forums we track.

I was going to add the new forum for Drive magazine but don’t remember what the URL is and have you tried finding anything related that magazine via Google?

Full Report

1. CattleNetwork.com 19.33% (2)
2. Cattle Today Sites 18.13% (1)
3. Cattle.com 14.01% (5)
4. Cattlerange.com 12.12%
5. Beefmagazine.com 11.95% (3)
6. Steerplanet.com 6.88%
7. Showsteers.com 5.67%
8. Cattlepages.com 3.35% (9)
9. Cattlegrower.com 2.82% (nr)Drovers.com 1.94% (8)

Steerplanet kept their spot ahead of Showsteers.com.

Data is for January which is a HUGE month for this site and Steerplanet due primarily to Denver.

A couple new sites were added to the index which 'waters down' the percentages a bit.

Full Report Here

1. DVAuction.com 44.41%
2. Cattle USA 28.60%
3. LiveAuctions.tv 16.57%
4. Breedersworldonlinesales.com 5.99%
5. CWCattleSales.com 3.61%
6. Edjecast.com 0.82%
7. Cattle-click.com N/A

About a dozen pages in to the February edition of The Showbox magazine I decided I should start doing a separate monthly visitor report solely for online auction sites.  I was a bit perplexed about what to call it but found the answer staring at me from the middle of the page.

This index is based on triangulated visitor statistics from Quantcast, Compete, and Google.

Speaking of...

That auction setup to the right is an extremely bare bones version of the online catalog option our auction software will be providing.  Those are all actual sales and don't allow online bidding so I'm not testing the bidding system there.  I've got an auction setup to list our two pugs, my son, and second pick of our twins (final sales not valid where child trafficking is illegal or anywhere outside this house) next week.

It seems like it's every day the price gets to new levels...

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USDA reports early trade developing this week in the fed-cattle market with steers averaging $109.68 per hundredweight. The agency’s National Cattle and Beef Summary reports over 100,000 head in live-basis sales Monday, and another 46,000 in carcass-based sales.

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Cattle Trader Center

Auction System

The auction system I’ve put together will go into demo mode late tomorrow.

Champion Breed Prices @ San Antonio

I was told some of the breed champions dropped as low as $4,000.

Scott Shaake

Thumbs up.

Cherie Carrabba

Other than a local friend who had twins, she’s the only person I’ve told we’re having twins that seems to understand the magnitude of the situation.  Most people act happy for you about such a blessing.  Her first reply was “Congratulations…I guess.”

Craigslist > 200 Flyers

We handed out 200 flyers to people waiting in line and wasting time in the barns at San Antonio last week.  I put the same information up on Craigslist and got five times as much response.

Market Research

For those who live in Texas and consider slick shear shows to be common, you'd be surprised at how many of the big mid-west names in the clubby world have never even been to a slick show.

KFOR Channel 4 reports 14 stolen cattle were returned to an Oklahoma rancher, but a few died when thieves, who are still on the loose, loaded the trailer too tightly.

Full Article on Drovers

Well, evidently they’re good at it

One of the things Schaake talked most about on the champion Brahman steer was how fresh he looked and how he obviously hadn’t been held back for the show.

The calf belongs to one of the nicest people in the barns and they’ve been holding him as hard as you can hold one since August.  He was pushing 1,200 at that time (the first of numerous times one of our calves got run over by him) and weighed just over 1,300 yesterday.

Total Steer Count

The total count was announced at 1,452.  Last year they claimed they had somewhere between 1,700 and 1,800 but the breed counts are the same this year and even people involved with the show say last year was closer to 1,500 than 1,700.

Houston does nearly twice that and takes a small fraction of the time San Antonio does to unload steers from trailers.  Have I beaten that dead horse enough?

Astronomical Floor Price

$102/CWT.  WOW.

Angus vs American Classification

It's always hilarious to watch the Angus classification where kids hold the halters near their hips and then the American breed classification where all the adults on the rail are telling kids to jack the heads up to create a crest.

Chi Classification

Two steers got classed out of Chianina.  I didn’t know that’s even possible.  I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see one of them.

• Charolais 86
• Limousin 126
• Simmental 111
• Shothorn 62
• Hereford 104
• Angus 81
• Red Angus 50
• Simbrah 75
• Santa Gertrudis 76
• Brangus 43
• Brahman 63
• Maine Anjou 85
• Chianina 282

That does not include the calves that were taken AOB or ABC right off the bat instead of getting classed in to one of the two.

The numbers are also higher than what made it in to the ring because of calves classed out.  While the lighter two divisions weren’t hit especially hard, the heavy weight Angus class had 27 calves attempt to classify but only 13 made it through.

The actual counts are amazingly consistent compared to last year.  The only breed with a large swing was Red Angus which just about doubled in size.

About the time I think San Antonio has been picking judges like John Edwards and Mark McClintock to force people to change the type of steers they breed, a judge like Shaake comes in and mentions words such as "cutability" in a terminal steer show...GASP. 

Admittedly, this is the first time I've seen him judge a slick show.  Personally, I like the kind of steers he's picking but I haven't seen that type used very often in the last two years here.  When I saw the champion Limousin in the staging area prior to being judged I thought he was a one heck of a calf if I were judging but not nearly soggy or smooth enough.

He's also not a big movement guy today.  He pulled one steer out that was a solid 10-12" from covering his own tracks.  Mentions of movement have been rare at best in the reasons I listened to.

Consignments to the 2011 San Antonio All Breeds Bull & Commercial Female Sale last week…

Lot #17 – Hereford Bull

His dam sold as lot 180 in the “Complete Dispersion of Registered Herefords” for Clyde Johnson & Sons Hereford Ranch on October 18th, 2008.  He was born November 12th of 2008.  He sold in the San Antonio All Breed Bull Sale last week, consigned by “Clyde Johnson & Sons Herefords.”

Lot #18 – Hereford Bull

His dam sold as lot 142 in the “Complete Dispersion of Registered Herefords” for Clyde Johnson & Sons Hereford Ranch on October 18th, 2008.  He was born February 15th of 2009.  He sold in the San Antonio All Breed Bull Sale last week, consigned by “Clyde Johnson & Sons Herefords.”

Easily one of the most commonly asked questions I get is “what does ‘medium and large 1’ on the barn reports mean?”  Take this report from San Angelo last week for example:

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FEEDER STEERS:
   Medium and Large 1 450-500 lbs 150.00-151.00; 500-550 lbs 140.00-
151.00; 600-650 lbs 126.50-132.00.
   Medium and Large 1-2 300-400 lbs 150.00-152.50; 400-500 lbs 142.00-
147.00; 500-600 lbs 123.00-128.00; 600-700 lbs 115.00-124.00; set 753
lbs 115.00.
   Medium and Large 2 300-400 lbs 135.00-143.00; 400-500 lbs 127.00-
134.00; 500-600 lbs 111.00-120.00; set 633 lbs 114.50; 700-800 lbs
102.00-105.00; set 848 lbs 98.00.

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Sidebar: Last year, did a single one of you think you’d look at a market report this February and see 400-500 lb steers selling for $1.50/lb?  That’s still just flat out jaw dropping.

Frame Size - “Medium and Large”

Frame size refers to the skeletal size of the animal, including:

• Height and body length – according to its age
• Estimate of the weight the animal will produce a grade choice carcass

Frame size evaluations are also related to the differences in the cattle’s mature size.  There are three frame sizes: large, medium and small.  Large framed steers will grade choice at 1,250, while “large” heifers would grade choice at 1,150.

Medium Frame steers grade choice between 1,100 and 1,250 pounds, while heifers fall into the 1,000 and 1,150 pound range. Steers and heifers weighing less than 1,100 pounds are considered Small Frame.

Muscle Thickness – “1-2”

The muscle score thickness refers to the development of the muscle system compared to the animal’s skeletal size. Muscle grades are divided into four parts:

1. Thick, heavy muscling
2. Average muscling
3. Light or thin muscling
4. Extremely light muscling

Feeder calf grades can fall into all four ranges; however, an inferior grade is meant for cattle that are sick, as well as double muscled cattle which will not be able to reach a choice grade.  Other cattle that do not make the grade include those with poor eyes, injuries, or horns. Sick and unthrifty cattle, stags, or cattle with odd colors also do not make the grade.

For better other resources on the subject...

• Montana Beef Quality Assurance
• NDSU
• USDA

I said that the people who got to the staging area at noon expected to be in their stalls between 9PM and midnight.  They were wrong, it was actually 1:30 AM before they got their steers in to their stalls.

For people that live 30-minutes south of San Antonio, it take less time to get steers from home to the stalls in the barn at Houston than San Antonio.

This list is based on sites people use OpenDNS to block from their home network...

1. Facebook.com —14.2%
2. MySpace.com — 9.9%
3. YouTube.com — 8.1%
4. Doubleclick.net — 6.4%
5. Twitter.com — 2.3%

Source OpenDNS® 2010 Report Web Content Filtering and Phishing

I had to go meet some guys taking steers in to the show yesterday and decided to bring the small camera along.  This is video of the “line” to get in to line and wait at an absolute minimum of 4 ½ hours...

Even though the staging area is a completely empty parking lot prior to 3pm on Monday, they don’t allow steer trailers to park in the staging area.  If you get to the staging area prior to 3pm you have to find a place to park on a side street, in a gas station, or in the middle of an abandoned lot.  At 3pm there’s a literal shot gun start and then the mad rush to try and get in starts.

This is all in anticipation of getting to the staging area where you’ll then have to wait at least 4 ½ hours before you can unload.

Why 4 ½ hours?  Because while they let you get in line at 3pm they won’t allow you to go to the barns until 7:30pm, after the rodeo starts because they don't want to add congestion to the traffic.

Of course, there’s no rodeo traffic between 3PM and 6PM, the steer unloading area is completely empty, and the barns are just sitting there ready to go and waiting for the steers to come in.  Despite that, even the first person in line (and you’ll recognize a few of the people at the start of that line if you know Texas steer jocks) has to sit there in the staging area for 4 ½ hours.

The people that got to Gembler Rd at noon and parked on the side streets figured they’d get to the barns between 9pm and midnight.

Don't sit in those dusty barns twiddling your thumbs, get out and see some calves.  Just head south down HWY 37 to HWY 97 and head east.  These four sets of calves are all within ten minutes of each other.

Call me at 210-380-7459 for more information on any of the sales.

Black Hill Steer & Heifer Sale

Approximately 15 steers and three heifers ranging from June born exotics to January ABCs.  All calves priced on a first come first served basis with prices from $800-$3,500.

Available for viewing and purchase now through Sunday, February 20th.  Calves in red pens at the intersection of FM 478 and HWY 97 between Pleasanton and Floresville, seven miles from HWY 37.  Call me at 210-380-7459 for more information.

$2,000 | January | Bar Fight (Warrant Son) x Lifeline
(Can stay on dam through Easter)

$2,500 | June Heifer | Dr. Who
Scramble Certificates Accepted

$1,500 | December 26 | Bar Fight x Brangus
(Can stay on dam through Easter)

South Texas Select Club Calf Sale

Selling approximately 45 steers and 15 heifers in a live auction on February 26th.  Calves will be available for viewing starting Wednesday, February 16th through Saturday, February 20th.

Located at HK Farms, approximately 2 miles from HWY 37 on HWY 97 between Pleasanton and Floresville.

September | Manchild x Who Made Who
Sells Febuary 26th.

ACCBA

Selling approximately 40 head of steers and a heifer on March 19th at the Atascosa County Showbarn.

Calves available for viewing at the same time and same location as the South Texas Select Sale from above.

Grothues Ranch

Over 50 head of steers that sell March 19th in an private treaty telephone auction.

Calves available for viewing now through sale day at Grothues Ranch at 175 Byrd Rd. (right between the two sales mentioned above).

Sells March 19th.

Map

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News of a beloved agriculture teacher's death traveled quickly late Saturday from the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo to Idalou, a small town near Lubbock.

Danny Gunn, 49, had just dropped off a trailer at a parking lot near Interstate 35 and Rittiman Road around 2:40 p.m. Saturday, when he collided with a northbound Union Pacific train on a private crossing, according to UP spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza-Williams.

Gunn, who taught agriculture at Idalou's K-12 school, along with another teacher and several parents had accompanied about 15 students on the annual trip to the rodeo to show heifers, pigs and steer, the district's superintendent said.

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Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Lubbock-area-agriculture-teacher-killed-in-crash-1011662.php#ixzz1Ds8lsgvy

A "crofter" is an owner of a small farm in Great Britain.  I know that because I have Google.

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Skye crofter 'last' to swim his cattle between grazings

BBC Alba's John McDiarmid reports on the crofter who shifts his cattle across the sea to Skye

The last crofter in Scotland to swim his cattle between winter grazings has completed his herd's crossing of the sea to Skye.

Swimming livestock between islands was once a familiar scene in the Highlands.

But Iain MacDonald, who grazes his cattle on a small island off Skye, is believed to be the last person to still move his animals this way.

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Full Story with Video

You can rest assured that if I claim something will be weekly, I'll forget to do it for the first few weeks. 

I'm sure he started dreaming of the day he'd have a kid he could tell to do that someday just like I did.

Full Gallery

Perhaps it's because I get sick of the TH/PHA zealots or maybe it's because I like the phrase "it is what it is" a bit too much but I love this post...

http://www.bradhookbs.com/2011/02/my-latest-promo-bullcritical-mass.html

We got the online sale calendar back online and it's reading most of the auction services properly again...

http://www.cattle.com/calendar.aspx

This is still the only source of auction information for mulitple auction sites.

If your sales are not listed here but you would like for them to be, please shoot me a line at jeff@cattle.com

I just got the latest Showbox magazine and I hate to say it because a sizeable chunk of my disposable income over the past eight years has gone in to it but...

My gosh, how big is this whole club calf bubble going to get before it pops?

Via ZTags on Twitter...

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All baby calves are born with some degree of respiratory acidosis. Respiratory acidosis is the buildup of by-products of carbon dioxide and a deficiency of oxygen. As the calf passes through the birth canal...

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http://beef.unl.edu/stories/201102070.shtml

I just got my most recent high pressure sales call from the BBB last week and to put it bluntly, I’m done giving the slightest bit of a damn about this organization.  Were they a great organization at one time?  Perhaps.  Unfortunately, they appear to have decided to focus more on sales than credibility in recent years.

For the record, we do have an A+ rating with them (which is better than the A- rating they gave Hamas) but we’re not accredited because I don’t have any reason to pay $475/year to become accredited.  The idea they require any sort of standard to become accredited is laughable once you get one of their sales calls which rank right up there as some of the sleaziest I've ever dealt with.

The sad thing is I’d consider accreditation if those sales calls didn't wreak of a boiler room call center.  I got the most recent one trying to sell us accreditation last week when we got a call because our profile had been visited “over ten times” in January.  After I told the sales guy "no" for the fourth time he tried to pitch the fact that GoDaddy is accredited so we better get accredited too or they would have a competitive edge.  Evidently they hadn't looked any further into us other than the fact that we have a website and since GoDaddy is a web host, we must be competitors.

Of course, the reason our profile was visited at all in January is I posted our most recent complaint so our users could see it on Trophyhorse.com.  It comes from a man who was banned from that site for cheating a second time.  I posted it for our users because it was there overwhelming amount of complaints about him that caused us to ban him.  After he was banned, he called me on a Saturday night and warned me that the FBI would break down our office door and shut down our servers Sunday morning if his subscriptions were not refunded by the time he went to the store to check (yeah, I have no clue either).

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Trophyhorse is never been valid, lot of us just let those spoil children have it. But stealing people money, that most be reported. I see where BBB, has allow trophyhorse.com to continue to committed internet fraud. Trophyhorse or committed fraud. You can't change the orders of races, you can't tell people how nor what horse to buy. You can't stop sales, because it's not coming to Jeff, the owner, or his buddies. Cause that leader board is never going to change. Cause they telling customers how to play that game. Well this complaint is just to let the BBB have another oppertunity to remove that game, on 1/08/2011, at 6:05pm, I spoke and file the proper investigation with the FBI and IC3. Cause I to live in Texas. That Jeff S. is robbing thousand of people around the world, with the help from someone here in Texas. So, the US goverment needs to see why an illegal company that three people have complan to your company about, and it's still on the internet. Those people lying. Well, im brand new. They still not doing nothing wrong. They must really be paying some big tax. Or does he own BBB too. Get that game off the internet. Cause, now the feds and IC3 is watching. If it is horse racing when you pay,then it's horse racing when you play. Jeff, is heading to jail. I ask the FBI, to get those files and computers, all records will prove major fraud by that company, and many complaints on the internet about from many people. No one is lying about that game. Stop covering up for them. Watch how the FBI, handle them. Jeff, is not being truthful with you'll. t~ak€: him give all information and file, all records, watch who stay at the top. That's Jeff, his family and friends. I has proof of all violation. THOPHYHORSE.COM is in fact, committing THEFT BY DECEPTION, and ONLINE FRAUD.

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That is the actual complaint as it was sent to the BBB and as they passed it on to us, direct copy and paste.  My wife tells me I'm not allowed to make any further assumptions about him.

The last time I had to deal with them (and the one complaint that you see on our record) was due to a complaint from a scum bag we banned for harassing other users.  He then started harassing us by sending pizza delivery guys.  He attempted to put our home on the market.  He called using a voice modifier and pretended to be a lawyer.  Then he used the BBB to file a complaint against us.

Long story short, before you put too much stock in the BBB, take a moment to read/watch the story from 20/20…

Better Business Bureau: The Best Ratings Money Can Buy

Full Report Here

This is almost entirely December data…

1. Cattle Today Sites 24.58%
2. CattleNetwork.com 18.76%
3. Beefmagazine.com 12.54%
4. Cattlerange.com 12.09%
5. Cattle.com 7.50%
6. Steerplanet.com 7.30% (7)
7. Showsteers.com 6.75% (6)
8. Drovers.com 4.72%
9. Cattlepages.com 2.03%
10. Bigdogcattle.com 0.62%

The report is a big skewed this month because Steerplanet is “Quantified” and their visitor number is based on January data (which is a HUGE month) and everyone else is based on December.  Based on that, Steerplanet jumped Showsteers.com.

Next month, we’ll be able to account for that to prevent the skewed data.

We're changing the name of the report to more accurately indicate which month the data came from.

Ranchhub.com was added to the index but did not register enough visitors on any of the sources of information we used.

What is this?

We triangulate data from Compete, Quantcast, and Google to come up with a ball park estimate of how many visitors each of these sites gets each month.

This is no way official, it’s just a combination of numerous third party estimates.  However, it IS more trustworthy than what individual sites like to claim about themselves being the “most visited.”

Speaking of Those Claims

The most recent one I’ve seen came from Breedersworldonlinesales.  Breedersworld has a long history of claiming they are the "most visited" this or that and was actually one of the inspirations for this index.

In a recent ad, they claimed "Breeders’ World and Breeders’ World Online Sales are The Most Visited Sites in the Online Sale Industry.”  So how do those claims stack up when put to the test of third party stats and not paid advertisements?

• Compete.com - DVAuction beats them handily and always has.
• Quantcast.com – Once again DVAuction beats them handily and always has.
• Google Ad Planner – DVAuction beats them handily.
• Google Searches – DVAuction still beats any combination of terms used to make up “Breedersworldonlinesales”

Perhaps they were claiming that when combined Breedersworld.com and Breedersworldonlinesales.com are tops…

• Compete.com – Even when combined BW and BWOS show fewer visitors than DVAuction
• Quantcast.com – Even when combined BW and BWOS show fewer visitors than DVAuction
• Google Ad Planner – Same thing

Perhaps Alexa?  DVAuction still wins for American traffic.

There is not a single source I know of that backs up the advertising claims from BW.

This isn’t an indictment of BWOS, they’re kicking ass and taking names in the Maxanet style online auctions.  They’ve actually got a clear edge on DVAuction in that style of sale.

Unfortunately, that’s not the claim their advertising makes.

Full Report Here

What I hate about that list is the Brangus association's data pages are head and shoulders above any other breed. Seriously, go check it out and then get on your breed association and ask them why theirs doesn't have all those bells and whistles.

Twitter continues to mess with my ability to form paragraphs…

Summary of every Texan's Facebook Status

It’s cold.

Ft Worth

Until all these yankee sports guys stop complaining about how cold it is doing their shows from radio row, there’s no way I’m going.

If you were going to use one of the bulls from Denver, which would you use?

Give me a few years.  I’m just now using bulls that were on display in 2007.

Did you see any bulls in Denver that would sire Americans?

Nope, not unless the cow has a ton of skin.  Most of the owners would consider it an insult to claim their bull would throw enough skin any way.

With Apologies to Dr. Grandin

I’ve been to one too many seminars on quiet handling in the past year and forgot how important a well intentioned but solid whack across the head is for some cows.

Mother's Day Out Stock Show Day

In my opinion, the fact that wearing a cowboy hat instead of his V8 or Lautner caps was more appropriate for my son's pre-school stock show day shows a huge lack of understanding of the stock show.

Why didn't the videos show more bulls on the move?

You know how everyone says they don’t want to see a bull fattened up but unfairly pick any bull that isn’t fat apart?  It’s the same thing with seeing bulls on the move.

Yeah, I went cheap on the gun, I won't make that mistake again.

Ideal Instruments, 50cc gun.

60 head through.