Cattle.com

Blog Archive July 2010

July Cattle Forum Actvity Index

Data for the time period June 28th to July 26th.

  1. Ranchers.net 43.28%
  2. Cattle-Today 24.63%
  3. Steerplanet 21.05%
  4. 5BarX 5.90%
  5. Advantage Cattle Services 4.27%
  6. Clubcalves 0.65%
  7. Breedersworld 0.17%
  8. EDJE 0.05%

A temporary drop in 5BarX has evidently resolved itself.

Overall forum activity is up to 2.7% vs the previous month to 451.21 posts per day.  Activity is down about 100 posts per day vs the similar time period in 2009.


Glover Dispersal Sale Report

The sale averaged about $4,900 on 220 breds/opens and $3,400 on 30 pairs.  27 females sold for $10,000 or more.  The top sellers included…

 

$35,000 - Lot 1a – “Miss Glover”, sired by Heat Seeker

$30,000 – Lot 2b – 2006 cow by Jakes Proud Jazz

$22,000 – Lots 3a and 3b – Two Shorthorn Proud Leader influenced females

$21,000 – Lot 16 – Another Proud Leader daughter

$21,000 – Lot 157 – Who Made Who daughter

$20,000 - Lot 30 – Ammo daughter

 

A full sale report can be found on Liveauctions.tv (subscription required)


Friday

Inception

My rib (reference) and I went to see Inception last night.  I don’t know if it was the three darn big margaritas or the movie, but I had a great time.

The best way to describe it to most of our readers is it’s like an Iowa steer jock watching a Brahman cross slick steer show.  Yes, you’ll have trouble understanding what exactly it is you’re watching the entire time and then wonder if you were actually watching what you thought you were watching once it’s over.

That said, you'll still have a great time. 

Glover Sale

I’m pretty pissed this is the same weekend that most of the steers we sold this spring will be at the same show together.  I’m doubly ticked that the one lot in the sale I wanted to see (the American) is not on video.

But hey, it’s my seventh anniversary and I am dragging my wife to a steer show where a bunch of steers she doesn't get any money from are showing instead of taking her on a real vacation.

Holly, that is not what I wrote.  If you want to keep this new editor ‘job’ you shouldn’t completely change the jist of what I’m saying.

I don’t care, it’s not a vacation, don't call it one.

Cattle Site Visitor Report

Compete.com and Quantcast are behind on their stats, the report will be out as soon as the stats for June are updated.


Showcattle.cn

Showcattle.cn (no, not .com) is evidently for sale but after being contacted about buying it I fear negotiations have broken down.  Please feel free to try to get it yourself, I've even included all negotiations to this point to help.

Monday, July 19, 2010 9:15 AM

Dear Sirs,

We have showcattle.cn and found that the domain is pretty useful for you .

Please get back to us that if you are interested in it.

Thanks

Regards,

John


Monday, July 19, 2010 10:16 AM

Dear John,

We’ll give you $20 for it.

Regards,

Jeff 


Monday, July 19, 2010 10:59 AM

Dear

Thank you for your are interest in showcattle.cn  !

We are price is 1,800$,and We could finish the transaction through SEDO.com a international Domain trade agency

Through SEDO( www.sedo.com), you could make your offer at  http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=showcattle.cn

Best gards
 
John


Monday, July 19, 2010 12:33 PM

Dear John

Okay, you drive a hard bargain, I’m willing to increase my price to $30.

Regards

Jeff


Monday, July 19, 2010 7:45 PM

I can't accept!


Monday, July 19, 2010 9:27 PM

$35?


Tuesday, July 20, 2010 6:07 AM

NO


Tuesday, July 20, 2010 8:13 AM

Okay, $37.50 but this is absolutely my last offer.


Friday

Livestockjudging.com

Why didn’t that site launch like you said it would, you ask.  Well, it’s funny you should ask because I’m quite pissed about it.  We drove to Waco and stayed overnight to video the contest but left the backup camera back home.  As soon as I turned the Cannon GL2 on in the pig barn it crashed due to condensation.

It was 89% humidity in Waco that morning.  I might not have been paying attention in ag engineering 365 (that's a pretty safe guess, man I hated that guy) but I think a hot bath only counts as 92% humidity and east Texas is somewhere around 100% on a good day.  If you’ve been in a pig barn at a show, you know you can typically double the humidity in those things as well.

Bottom line, ever since then I’ve been too disgusted to work on the site.

I truly hope I grow up some day.

Tusa Sale

The Southern Exchange Collection Female Sale averaged right at $2,600 for breds and $1,400 for opens.  The sale was topped by a White Trash bred heifer at $9,250 and a Big Tattoo bred at $6,500.  I don’t know a thing about him but I’ve seen a couple Big Tattoos that I’ve liked lately.

The sale was run on Breedersworldonlinesales which I should haven’t to tell you is hands down the best auction system of its kind (non-live) out there now.  You can setup a similar auction system yourself with little to no technical knoweldge and a couple hundred bucks but the exposure is what’s made it a success.

What I like most about it is I don’t have to wait to just waste time on a Saturday to watch cattle sales now.  Now, I can go check bids for 2-3 days at a time.

Breeders World Stock Book

Breedersworld has jumped on the Social Engine bandwagon.  It’s the same software that Cattle Today and Cattlegrower.com are using for their social networking initiatives.  Hey, BW took the very basic Maxanet auction system and turned it into what I mentioned above so it would be foolish to predict failure but “Facebook for [insert your industry here]” is becoming pretty darn clichéd.

The one thing I don’t understand about all the ag Facebook clones is Facebook already has a vibrant agricultural community.  I could see benefits to setting up something like it that integrates into Facebook (in fact, that’s been on my darn white board for about two years now) but that would require actual programming and not just buying software, rebranding it, and installing it.  Think of it as the difference between welding your own pens and buying prebuilt panels.

Misspelled Domain Names

I own somewhere in the range of 70 domain misspellings for no reason other than to make sure my customers end up on the right site.  Most of them were found and registered based on automatic tools without me actually looking at them.  In fact, the only domain name I don't currently own that I want is a mispelling, Showdogs.com (the jerk went underground when I contacted him about buying it).

I’m letting go of “showhores.com” (we own Showhorse.com) today purely out of “yeah, not sure I feel like explaining that to my Sunday school class” based purely on the ads that Godaddy thinks should run on the parked domain.


Heat Wave Died

As posted on the Matt Lautner blog.  It's not ground breaking news as he hasn't consistently produced semen in quite some time and has up-teen clones.

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Temple Grandin

The HBO movie brought in 15 Emmy nominations.  It's a pretty safe bet that there will never be a better movie put out in terms of something that 'gets' cattle.


Sire Price Report

Full Report Here

Just under 900 individual sale lots were added to the sire price report database over the weekend.  The sire price report now analyzes the sale results of just under 19,000 individual cattle sold at public auction over the past five years.

The ratios are calculated based on the bull’s offspring averages vs the average of comparable cattle in the rest of the sale.  That is then weighted based on the overall average of the rest of the bulls in the sale.  Essentially, these percentages are my version of an EPD for public auction price.

One interesting little nugget I found was in the female ranking where Chill Factor, The Witch Doctor, Irish Whiskey, and Meyer Ranch 734 were all bunched up together with a 9.6-10.3 rating.  If you know your sires, that’s interesting because those are all considered to be maternal ‘clubby’ bulls.  BTW, both Irish Whiskey and Meyer 734 have negative ratios for their sons.

Top Sires

Bulls
(At least 25 offspring sales)

  1. S S Objective T510 0T26 +36.50%
  2. SITZ New Design 458N +28.00
  3. Sitz Upward 307R +23.90%
  4. RDD Destinys Ace +23.60%
  5. Duff New Edition 6108 +21.60%
  6. Rito 6I6 of 4B20 6807 +21.10%
  7. Connealy Onward +20.90%
  8. Ali +19.00%
  9. Beckton Julian GG B571 +17.90%
  10. O C C No Doubt 622N +17.60%

Females
(At least 25 offspring sales)

  1. HC Power Drive 88H +81.60%
  2. Yellow Jacket +72.70%
  3. N Bar Emulation EXT +50.90%
  4. Lifeline +48.60%
  5. Tank +44.00%
  6. G A R Predestined +42.00%
  7. Who Made Who +41.90%
  8. DHD Traveler 6807 +35.70%
  9. CNS Dream On L186 +32.80%
  10. DCC New Look 101 +28.50%

Steers
(At least 10 offspring sales)

  1. Ring of Fire +87.90%
  2. Monopoly +31.60%
  3. Heat Wave +16.20%
  4. Carnac +15.90%
  5. S-S 107/5 +14.30%


Friday

I had the opportunity to work two good kids yesterday who helped AI and freeze brand cattle for nothing at all.  I highly recommend taking the opportunity to let some local kids come help and teach them the basics of the AI/breeding process if you can. 

And if you know who is reading this, we’re going to get you to palpate a cow next time, just watch.

Glover Sale Catalog

Unless there was some amazing dispersal before I started paying attention, I’m going to grant this sale the coveted title of “Cattle.com Most Powerful Set of Females Ever Sold”.

There are proven young cows in the back of the catalog that are sale features in virtually any other female sale out there.  There are cows fresh off of selling $10k steers in the back end of the catalog.

Good News

While freeze branding cattle, we had the opportunity to watch the bulls in the pen for the majority of the day.  The bull mentioned in this post is evidently well enough now to top co…um…cattle larger than him, at least two dozen times in a day.

Related News

Dr. Sully, the bull Sullivan Ranch has used to cover heifers for a few breeding seasons, and that we recently bought for a few dollars above slaughter to do the same, is what the 'homersexuals' like to call a ‘bottom’, at least two dozen times in a day.


Gold Fish

One of the benefits of having some of the most overbuilt pens in existence (more about that some day) is the rich guy who built them in the 60s put a bunch of water troughs in them.  That’s great when you’re working cows but can be a pain when you don’t have cattle in them for a period of time and the water troughs overgrow with algae and fill up with mosquitoes.

 

That’s why we have diversified our operation and are now gold fish farmers.  We bought our first gold fish last spring (09) as an experiment to see if they’d keep them clean.  While I can’t say which is the cause and which is the effect, every trough that has fish in it now is about as clean as you could possibly hope for one to be.

 

They’re some tough little sons of guns.  The little guys lived through a couple 105 degree days and then lived through the troughs freezing over in the winter.  In fact, as long as a trough didn’t go completely dry, it now has a little gold fish family living in it.  I was originally under the impression that gold fish didn’t eat algae, I thought that was the job of grass carp, but they most certainly do.

 

How do you put golf fish in your water troughs?

 

I’m sure there is some great guidance on how to do it properly and how to manage the fish.  In fact, I found a bunch of resources online that talk about everything from acclimating them to what to do with them after it rains of before it freezes.

 

My process is…

 

1 – Buy the cheapest gold fish you can find.  20 to 33 cents is the price range to look for.

 

2 – Dump ten in each trough.

 

3 – Win.

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