Thursday, February 5, 2015

Market Day - Calm is the Key





We were up bright and early this morning before the sun came up on what I think has been the coldest morning we have had this Winter of course. The thermometer read 5 degrees with maybe a half inch of snow dusting the ground from last night. I already had the stock trailer in place and hooked up all we needed to do was separate the yearlings into the keep (for now) group and the going to market group.

I had my Mom bring out her records and I started grabbing a yearling and read off it's number and she replied with stay or go. We kept six of the largest yearlings for slaughter next month, two new breeder ewes and the rest got loaded. My son was the back gate keeper into the stay paddock while Mom operated the out to market gate.

Before we were halfway finished my son and I fired grandma from record keeping. Her system (if you could call it that) was totally inadequate to our needs. Now that we no longer have to mess with her ex and his nearsighted temper tantrums things went pretty smooth even with the lack of detailed record keeping. By the time we were finished my son was already designing a database in his head to program and we had decided on a new ear tag coding system that starts with right ear girl, left ear boy and get's more complicated from there. We also plan on color coding the tags with the same scheme as we use for marking honey bee queens for year. A five year color coding should fit our needs perfectly.

The key to the entire operation is to not get carried away, don't chase a runner as that just upsets everyone, no yelling and making sure the groups are separate but can clearly see their friends. Oh and doing it before you feed em. They are much easier to move when they think they got grain at the other end.

I know I been saying we were going to market the lambs for a while now but last weeks prices were really up so we decided to jump today. Of course not that it means much as prices maybe down today you just never know. Judging by last weeks prices we should be getting around $3500.00 to 4K out of this batch we took in plus another $200.00 per head for the six slaughter yearlings we kept which we won't take in until next month. I think we are back down to 30 ewes, six yearlings and two rams now. I think.....

That's counting the two yearling ewes we kept to add to the flock.

Market day is always a bit aggravating because it seems there is always some type of confusion, mostly an eartag or two that didn't get recorded properly. Most of this was because of Mom's Ex who would start screaming and not paying attention to the details that matter.

As it turned out I had to unload the little flock as well. They had a kid who was having fun unloading but he obviously didn't know sheep very well as he was attempting to drive em like cattle. I just reached down and grabbed the first yearling by his neck and moved him along so the rest would follow.

We should know tonight what they brought and the feed bill will certainly fall off now for a few months.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!


13 comments:

  1. You know, "calm" is key to a great many issues in life. Well done.

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    1. RP - Yes it is isn't it. Honestly Mom's ex caused a lot of issues as he could not control his temper at all and anything they ever did together turned into a shouting match making it simply hard to be around. I will be the first to admit my Mother does egg a lot of it on with her constant barbs and muttered criticisms but I have found the best way to deal with that passive aggressive thing is to ignore it until it is obvious they were wrong and then hammer it back at them with humor not anger.

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  2. I remember those days. We always used pink tags for the girls and blue for boys.....I know, no imagination. Lamb tags stayed on forever so that is all we used. Staying calm is the most important thing one can do in any situation. It is no fun working livestock in freezing temps, either. Glad you got through it OK

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    1. Tewshooz - We seriously discussed doing it that way but we did the right and left ear thing two years ago and it worked great. Last year Mom's Ex kept screaming he didn't have time for that nonsense but what actually happened is he got confused on the very first lamb and so the idea was stupid after that just cause he wanted to cover his ass. We actually discussed it a bit more today and I think what we are going to do now is assign a color for each ram therefore it will be right or left ear and then color coded by daddy.

      We will see this year how that plan works.

      We are also talking about adding a third ram this Fall too.

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  3. Sounds like every year things get a little easier. Good job

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    1. Rob - We are learning slowly what works best. This size yearlings are still easy for me to man handle it's the big girls that become more of an issue.

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  4. I have to say something re: your comment on going gently
    Lori ? Lori was a babe?
    Really?

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    1. Sara Callies is very attractive. Also if you haven't noticed her and the actress that portrays (portrayed) Beth are both MidWestern girls kinda. One is from rural Illinois and one is from Nebraska. They have that look we find attractive out here :)

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    2. I missed something. What does Sara Callies have to do with sheep?

      She has a look that many areas would find attractive.

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  5. Preppy - I'll be interested to hear how this year compares to years past - both in pricing and in the general atmosphere of the auction.

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    1. TB - Well I won't know what we actually got for the crew until we get the check and invoice. Last time it took almost a week. We didn't stick around for the sale because well Mom refuses to as it upsets her to see the yearlings run out onto the floor. Looked to me like there was less coming in than I have seen in past years but we got there much earlier than we have in the past too. There seemed to be more of a jovial atmosphere with the unloaders though. There was a whole passel of them this time where usually there is just two guys.

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    2. Interesting. I am always curious about the atmosphere of such things. I would think it would say a lot about the local economy.

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  6. PP,

    Here's praying for a load of $$$ in your pocket on this Market Day!!!

    Things really run smoothly when you no longer have the person (s) around adding stress.

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