Who forgot to take pictures on sale day? I forgot to take pictures on sale day. And that’s really bad, given we only sell calves twice a year.
When we sold retail beef, “payday” used to be spread out a bit. But now that we’re back to selling calves only twice a year, “payday” is now twice a year, in the spring, and in the fall. Most producers either have spring groups or fall groups – we have both. We rent most of our pasture land – if we had all our animals on one farm, we’d just have one calving season. The explanation is fairly simple. We try to check our cows at least twice a day during calving season, and that’s impractical if they’re on different farms. So we end up with thirty-some calves born in the spring on one farm, and sold in the fall, and a second group born in the fall, on a second farm, and sold in the spring.
The calves we sold today looked similar to this guy, who we sold this past summer. The buyers at the sale today seemed to appreciate our calves, and feels pretty good to have our efforts validated.
And heading into winter with few mouths to feed feels pretty good as well.