June is here!

June marks the month where we go to one publication for June and one newspaper issue for July, along with our annual magazine Special Edition. But June also marks the month where I try to put together my fall sale schedule.

Getting the calendar corrected, getting my proposed ad schedules submitted, and getting a general plan if attack. But it is also a good time to get a bearing on where we stand annually compared to previous years. 

There is no question that the prices we are seeing for cattle are at all time highs. And it is a good time to remember that there are usually at least two good reasons for high prices. One of course is demand. And demand couldn’t be much stronger than it is today. 

The other big reason is short supply! The cattle numbers are lower than they have been in decades. Short numbers mean less cattle to sell. And in our publishing world, less cattle to sell means less cattle sales. This is a trend that we have been seeing for the past three years. But we have also seen it in our Annual San Antonio All Breed Sale.

The total number we have sold has been down for the last three years and we are predicting a fourth. There was a time when we would have well over a thousand head nominated for a sale where the maximum pen space calls for 550 females and about 60 bulls. We sold 40 bulls this year and were right at 500 head, which was up 50 from the year before.

There was a time when on a normal production sale would need at least 100-150 head to gross enough for a producer to justify sales expenses. These days 50-75 head will gross more dollars than the 100-150 head sales we were having 4-5 years ago. 

This may spur an increase in the number of sales we are seeing. It remains to be seen. We certainly hope so.