Heifer Calf Bought at the Fair

Heifer calf Sally Jo with her 4H member Shelby.

I hadn't been to the county fair's junior livestock sale for several years, but this year I decided I'd attend to see how the sale might go - given the high cattle prices in the market right now.

The Warren County Fair Junior Livestock Show is like any other county fair show - the kids work hard to bring a good animal to the fair and also work hard to drum up support for their animal the day of the sale.

I was expecting big prices since the "truck" was paying $2.33 a pound on the hoof.  the "truck" means the sale barn where cattle are sold at auction to the highest bidder and truck loads of these calves are collected to send to feed lots out west. Businesses who buy cattle at the sale for advertising purposes, rarely keep the animal but send it on the "truck" to be resold at a sale barn.

Most of the calves sold pretty well - above $3.00 a pound and some even in the $4.00 range. Anyone buying and putting the animal on the "truck" would only really have to pay the difference between $2.33 and their final bid - which is a deal.

This was Shelby's first time showing cattle.  She was not well known so didn't have a lot of potential buyers.  I purchased Sally Jo for $2.75 a pound or $1171.62 - a real bargain for this nice heifer calf. Shelby is delivering her tomorrow.