Blog Archive September 2012
Cattle.com Top individual sale lots of the past week...
- $15,400 - Heifer sired by Ayres Montana Upgrade 248
- $11,100 - Heifer sired by Ayres Montana Upgrade 248
- $9,751 - Heifer sired by Cyrus
- $8,750 - Heifer sired by JF Foundation
- $8,000 - Heifer sired by Ayres Sudden Revival of OCC
- $7,200 - Heifer sired by Ayres Montana Upgrade 248
- $6,755 - Heifer sired by JEK Little Joe
- $6,250 - Heifer sired by Monopoly
- $6,050 - Heifer sired by Monopoly
- $6,000 - Heifer sired by Ayres Montana Upgrade 248
You'll have to figure out the photographer on your own since a certain somebody has asked me not to mention him by name here.
People keep sending me examples of your work to feature here. No lie, every….freaking….day. I’m tired of it, really.
It's to the point that I've been accused of playing politics by NOT featuring some of the pictures with the most blatantly off center backgrounds.
I've gotta ask…
Who benefits from it? Why do it?
Is it purely accidental or are you intentionally doing it?
(would whichever one of you it is that forwards this stuff to him please make sure to do it again? Thanks)
This is not a gripe, I promise you. I know everyone that’s said it to us has had the best of intentions and just about every one of our family friends has said it to us. Strangers have said it. Store clerks have said it. Nurses have said it. Doctors have said it. I’ve been tempted to say it myself when I saw another parent of twins.
“Sure looks like you have your hands full.”
Don’t say that. Say anything; “hi”, “can I help you with that”, “I feel sorry for you”, anything. Anything but “looks like you have your hands full.”
I promise you they’ll be just a little bit shocked.
Top individual sale lots of the past week...
- $42,000 - Heifer sired by SLC Sooner 101M
- $38,000 - Steer sired by I Am Legend
- $35,500 - Steer sired by Smilin Bob
- $32,000 - Steer sired by Monopoly
- $27,000 - Steer sired by Monopoly
- $26,000 - Steer sired by Man Among Boys
- $25,500 - Steer sired by Heat Wave
- $21,500 - Steer sired by Heat Wave
- $20,001 - Steer sired by Monopoly
- $20,000 - Heifer sired by I-80
In an extremely impressive move, I’ve been told the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo sent out ‘bonus’ checks of about $1,800 per head for the placing steers.
They’ve caught an awful lot of unfair criticism in recent years for having low payouts on the lower placing steers. The reason that criticism is unfair is the only reason the steers place in Houston is they brand an insane amount of steers each year. At just about any other major show, the calves that people complain they only got $2,000 for would have gotten the gate. That argument unfortunately doesn’t resonate with the guy who just spent $1,000 on travel alone and watched his excitement over an 11th place class one Chi fade when he realizes how much money he just spent to do it.
With the $1,800 bonus, they’re stepped up to the plate and really come through for the kids. It’s hard to put that in perspective when it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars they’re sending out but that’s the result of an awful lot of hard work.
It’s even harder to put in perspective to Texans who take the work the folks at our majors do for granted and all think that is in any way, shape, or form, normal for a stock show.
Ranch House Designs, Inc. is proud to announce a mentorship program designed to help build future leaders in livestock advertising and marketing.
Each year, RHD will select 20 of the nation’s top young livestock professionals to participate in the program, which will run from fall 2012 to spring 2013. To apply, a student must be enrolled in a junior college or four year university.
Applicants should be primarily interested in careers in livestock marketing, livestock advertising, livestock photography, association work, or similar fields.
Upon selection to the program, the RHD Scholars will be matched with a mentor from the RHD team, which includes professionals in marketing, design, social media, journalism, and photography. The elite group of RHD scholars will:
- Develop a professional mentor relationship with a member of the RHD staff and other industry professionals based on your career preferences. Your mentor will be available throughout the year to assist you with career advice, critiques, school projects, networking, and professional guidance.
- Be recognized and promoted on the RHD website
- Receive monthly professional development newsletters and other educational materials from the RHD team.
- Have access to job postings and scholarship announcements
- Discounted admission to RHD educational clinics (i.e. photography and marketing workshops)
- Have the opportunity to network with their RHD mentor and other industry professionals arranged by RHD at industry events such as major stock shows and conventions.
To apply, please provide the information below in email format to Rachel Cutrer at rachel@ranchhousedesigns.com. You may recreate this form as needed. Applications will be due September 30 and winners announced early October.
An e-mail turned into a blog post...
How long did you leave the irons on the cow?
We did 30 seconds instead of the 45 seconds we do with dry ice. Based on Evan Rayl's freeze branding guide thing he wrote a few years ago.
With Dry Ice we would apply alcohol while the irons where on the cow. Did you have to put anything on with the nitrogen?
Yes, that was the biggest improvement with dry ice so I made sure do it with the nitrogen as well.
How long did it take you to do 50 cows?
We had the first cow in the chute shortly after 7AM and we were done by noon but that was with a fair amount of SNAFUs.
Any problem with the nitrogen staying cold?
We did have to refill the ice chest a lot and we used quite a bit, nitrogen is just so cheap at the welding supply that it didn't matter. The difference I liked was that when nitrogen isn't cold enough, it evaporates. Alcohol turns into a progressively sloppier mess and you're never 100% sure when it's not longer any goo
How long did it take to get the iron cold enough to use again compared to Dry Ice?
They stopped boiling about 5 seconds after they were put back in.
Has it been long enough since you did it to see if it took?
No, it was done on Saturday. However, we can actually read the brand via the blistering today, which is pretty darn quick.
There’s all sorts of stuff you can glean from the information we provide on this one page. The obvious thing is Monopoly’s steady eating away of the ‘cow share’ of his daddy turned into a tidal wave in the spring of 2011. Nearly 1 in 6 of the 491 steers sold in online sales this fall have been by Monopoly, a number previously unheard of.
Today’s fun with numbers though focuses on two brothers, Walks Alone vs Believe in Me. Walks Alone was never in Denver but his brother was and was one of the more popular bulls of ’11. BIM's first calf crop is hitting the sale right now.
How do the sale averages of Believe in Me’s first calf crop compare to his brother Walks Alone so far?
Calves Counted
Walks Alone - 43
Believe in Me – 19
Average Sale Price
Believe in Me - $4,308
Walks Alone - $3,672
Individual Sale High Seller from Sires
Of course, with about half as many calves, BIM isn’t impacted by regression to the mean like Walks Alone is on overall sale averages. How about which bulls is producing the higher selling calf in head to head comparisons?
| Belive in Me | Walks Alone | |
| Baughman | $7,250 | $7,750 |
| Campbell | $4,750 | $7,000 |
| Capatske | $3,500 | $5,000 |
| Holt Brothers/Hartwell | $5,750 | $8,000 |
| Hunter | $8,750 | $2,250 |
| Junk | $2,750 | $3,000 |
| McFarland | $3,000 | $7,250 |
| Woldridge/Kelly Long | $1,300 | $2,000 |
| Wolfe Farms | $6,750 | $8,000 |
Top individual sale lots of the past week...
- $25,000 - Steer sired by Monopoly
- $17,000 - Steer sired by Monopoly
- $15,001 - Steer sired by Starburst
- $14,500 - Heifer sired by Trifecta
- $10,700 - Bred cow sired by JDH Sir Avery Manso
- $10,100 - Pair sired by Mr. V8 815/5
- $10,000 - Steer sired by Unsub
- $9,700 - Pair sired by +Mr. V8 287/5
- $8,750 - Heifer sired by Monopoly
- $8,000 - Steer sired by Power and Balance
I don't know if I've mentioned it but I got a call Tuesday night from one of my biggest fans asking why I point stuff like tilting out. I said I do it because people notice it and care when it’s done. He said rather directly that no, they do not.
And you know what? He’s right. We’re just talking about two different sets of people. I would have pointed that out to him but he hung up on me after saying he’d call his lawyers if I mentioned his name here again.
I was talking about the people that make photo editing blogs posts the most popular thing I comment on. I’m going to have to guess (because he hung up on me before I could ask) he’s talking about his clients and the people that buy the high dollar steers.
The thing is, the steers that photographers are playing the most games with are good enough that by and large, they don’t need the retouching or tilting. They’ll bring big money even if they do appear to slope a tad and the background fence line and vehicles are level.
That begs the question, why do it? What is there to gain from it?
There's most certainly a subliminal effect to seeing a calf with an absolutely straight topline whether you want to say you can see past it or not. There’s no shortage of studies that have shown that the people most confident they’re not influenced by such things in advertising are actually the ones that are more easily influenced. But just straightening out the topline doesn’t make a calf a big money steer. By and large, the guys that buy those steers aren’t rubes and they know not to buy a calf off of a picture.
No, tilting the photo isn’t what makes the calf a $10,000 show steer. Those calves are $10,000+ steers because of their clip job, the ranch selling them, the marketing, and most importantly the fact that they are just plain old great steers. Whether my latest fan wants to admit it or not, it just makes people question the credibility of photos and laugh.
And yes, they are laughing at you.
They just say it in quiet because instead of justifying your actions, you'll threaten to sue them if they say it in public.
note: Going on a one week photography hijinx moratorium. That stuff gets old really fast and frankly, the guy that's behind most of the easy to spot stuff just doesn't care beyond having somebody new he can be mad at.
http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/tvbizwire/2012/09/abc-news-sued-for-12-billion-o.php
ABC News has been hit with a defamation lawsuit over its coverage of a meat product that has been dubbed “pink slime” by its critics, the Seattle Times reports.The suit was filed today by Dakota Dunes, S.D.-based meat processor Beef Products Inc., which accuses ABC of misleading consumers into thinking the product is unsafe. The suit seeks $1.2 billion in damages for about 200 "false and misleading and defamatory" statements, according to an attorney for BPI.
We branded with nitrogen instead of alcohol for the first time last Saturday. We’ve been freeze branding for a few years but had about 50 head in the commercial herd that still didn’t have permanent ID.
Side note, it was an extremely nice day in pretty much all of Texas that day after a dry northern came through. There was very low humidity with relatively cool temperatures and a heavy breeze. You know, exactly the kind of weather that would cause a bunch of stud athletes that have been training in the heat and humidity of Florida for the past month, with a well-publicized hydration management plan, and the home of the most popular sports drink in existence to suddenly start cramping up every other play.
Here’s my amateur opinion of branding with nitrogen vs alcohol & dry ice…
Nitrogen
Costs: The extra semen tank to get the nitrogen there can be expensive unless you wait to buy one for $300 long enough to get the text that somebody’s willing to just give you an old one. We didn’t do that.
Beyond that, we branded ~50 cows with about $20 worth of nitrogen. That’s actually quite a bit of liquid but liquid nitrogen is dirt cheap.
Ease of Use: No problems whatsoever. You can clearly tell when the irons are cold enough because they make a rather violent bubbling until they are.
Dangers: I wouldn’t get on the ground and breathe that cloud of fumes I posted earlier this week but the danger is really only in coming into contact with the liquid nitrogen. I’m not afraid to turn the hot irons on around it.
Alcohol & Dry Ice
Costs: You don’t have to have the special containers that you do for nitrogen so there’s hardly any upfront cost.
The thing that bites you in the butt is the cost of dry ice and 99% alcohol. Dry ice is extremely expensive compared to nitrogen with a few bags of it typically running about $50. Alcohol almost has to be bought through a vet supply and runs about $25/gallon. You’ll almost certainly need at least that much.
That $75 cost per branding session is made worse by the fact that it doesn’t go as far as liquid nitrogen. Our total cost per head ended up being about $4/head with alcohol vs about twenty cents with nitrogen.
Ease of Use: You never have to come in contact with liquid nitrogen, just pour it in the container. With dry ice, you have to break the large blocks up into very small chunks. Sure, you wear gloves to do it; you’re still messing around with it.
I hate the chunks of dry ice on the bottom of the ice chest, it makes putting the brands in a pain.
Dry ice doesn’t just evaporate when it’s no longer cold enough. It turns into a progressively thicker gel.
The irons don’t do a violent bubbling like with liquid nitrogen so you can’t be sure when they’ve cooled enough.
You’re supposed to leave the brands on for 15 seconds longer with alcohol.
Dangers: Alcohol is extremely flammable and I wouldn’t turn the electric branders (white colored cattle) on anywhere near it.
Long story short: We’re never going back to dry ice.
...I was erroneously/fraudulently charged in excess of $7,200 for some type of fraudulent 'work at home' ad spots with Bing Ads on September 3rd/4th and just now realized it.
Now THAT is messing with somebody's livelihood.
For Photographers
Step 1
Open the photo in Photoshop and do whatever hue/saturation/cropping adjustments you need to.
Step 2
Don’t click the free transform button to straighten out a topline.
Step 3
File > Save for Web
For Cattlemen
Step 1
Open the photos your photographer sends you.
Step 2
Send that tilted crap back and tell them you don't want to have any part of that foolishness.
Appendix
Did you miss something and get wrongfully featured? E-mail jeff@cattle.com or call him at 210.380.7459, explain what happened, and watch an apology show up a few minutes later.
We've removed the name of the photographer from an earlier post based on a phone call Tuesday night. Heck, I went ahead and removed the entire post. The call was short but he seemed pretty mad and I didn't just make up my reputation as the nicest and most forgiving person on the internet for nothing so I took it down.
We also won't be mentioning him by name again because he said we'd "hear from his lawyers" if we do.
He hung up on me after that.
Now you'll NEVER be able to figure out which photographers are tilting photos.
...I'm not approving most of them because I don't want the anger directed at you guys making the comments.
After the National Barrow Show, here’s the first updated senior college livestock judging power rankings for the fall.
- Texas A&M – 1.508
- Oklahoma State – 1.489
- Iowa State – 1.471
- Western Illinois – 1.443 (6)
- Colorado State – 1.439 (4)
- Texas Tech – 1.436 (5)
- Kansas State – 1.430
- University of Illinois – 1.397 (9)
- West Texas A&M – 1.396 (8)
- Georgia – 1.386
Ranking includes results from…
Full Ranking HereArizona NationalFort WorthGCC 2011HoustonIowa Beef ExpoNational Barrow showNational WesternNebraska Cattlemens ClassicSan AntonioSioux Falls
Unfortunately, I’ve been asked not to mention the photographer by name so you’ll have to do some pretty deep digging to figure it out.
Never met the man, just heard of his reputation. Various posts on his passing...
The "Top Web Sale Lots" weekly report has been fixed to remove the Nebraska Cattleman's Classic.
This bug was reported to me a few weeks ago but I forgot to fix it.
This year’s Midwest steer sale season compared with last year’s based on July 1st to the second weekend in September…
2011
204 steers sold in 18 sales
$3,009 average price
Sires with 10+ Steers Sold
Monopoly - 26 @ $3,027
Heat Wave - 24 @ $5,425
Walks Alone – 21 @ $2,343
Immortal – 18 @ $3,197
2012
216 steers old in 20 sales
$3,232 average price – Up 7.4%
Sires with 10+ Steers Sold
Monopoly – 46 @ $3,758
Eye Candy – 19 @ $3,943
(Heat Wave, Bojo, and My Turn all at 9)
First time we've used nitrogen instead of alcohol. If I would have known it makes this cool fog on the ground I would have done it a long time ago.
Top individual sale lots of the past week...
- $45,000 - Heifer sired by Irish Whiskey
- $30,000 - Steer sired by Salty Dog
- $25,000 - Steer sired by Monopoly
- $15,000 - Heifer sired by SULL GNCC Urlacher
- $14,000 - Steer sired by Heat Wave
- $14,000 - Steer sired by Salty Dog
- $13,500 - Steer sired by Eye Candy
- $11,000 - Heifer sired by Mercedes Benz
- $10,000 - Steer sired by Monopoly
- $8,755 - Heifer sired by Tabasco
I’ll admit it, going after photoshopping is sort of low hanging fruit.
I’d compare it to running into the Democratic National Convention and yelling “RICH PEOPLE SUCK!!!!!” You’re going to get a good reception, you just know it but you're sort of pandering to the mob.
Instead of another bounty (I made a terrible mistake going with the nine degree off center heifer I did as a baseline, she’s just not going to be beat) or repeating my passive aggressive lines again, we’re just going to start pointing out the problems with some of the alterations that are around. It will be about 10% educational in that some people can learn what to look for.
Take this, which was pulled from a photo a week ago but I don’t even remember which sale it was from…
Notice that blurring? No, not on the topline where there's a sharp contrast with the background. The blurring along the impressively straight crest line. The blurring that doesn't exist anywhere else along the calf except suspiciously selected spots on the underline and brisket.
That’s what inspired last weeks letter to photographers. It’s sloppy. It’s not only disrespectful of the potential buyers of that calf (again, don’t even remember which sale) it’s also disrespectful to the people selling the calf that expect him to do a professional job in misleading their potential customers.
If the photographer took time and did it right he’d make sure that the blurring along the crest was removed so the contrast would be similar to the rest of the calf.
But he’s not.
Because he has too much work.
Because when other photographers say that if they don’t alter the photos the owners will go to somebody else, he’s the guy they’re talking about.
Top individual sale lots of the past week...
- $10,500 - Bred Heifer sired by SVF/NJC Built Right N48
- $10,500 - Bull sired by ZKCC Chopper 884U
- $8,500 - Heifer sired by ZKCC Chopper 884U
- $7,750 - Bull sired by SVF Star Power S802
- $7,000 - Bull sired by F Nichols Muhammad
- $6,500 - Bull sired by CNS Dream On L186
- $6,250 - Bull sired by Rains You Bet
- $6,250 - Bull sired by Sandeens SOS
- $6,000 - Bull sired by SVF Steel Force S701
- $5,750 - Bull sired by Harkers/JS Domination
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