10/13/2026
One thing farming will teach you real quick is that just when you think you’ve figured something out, it’ll humble you again.
Until this year, we had never sold cattle through the auction. We’ve always raised our cattle with the goal of finishing them out and putting quality beef on the tables of our friends, family, and community.
But this year we’ve started trying something a little different, and let me tell ya, the cattle auction is a whole different ballgame.
You can sit there and watch calves/feeders sell all day long and try to figure out what makes one bring more than another. Weaned, vaccinated, not vaccinated, bigger, smaller. Just when you think you’re seeing a pattern, the next group comes through and proves you wrong.
Some days it seems like it all comes down to which buyer happens to pick their head up at the right time, who’s paying attention, or whose cattle happened to be on the list before yours.
There’s a whole lot of uncertainty in farming, and this is just another part we’re learning as we go.
We’re slowly finding a balance that works for our little farm. Raising some cattle all the way to finish so we can continue providing beef to our community, while selling some of our calves to the bigger farms and feedlots to finish out.
There’s no perfect way to do it, and what works for one farm might not work for another. We’re just trying to make decisions that allow us to keep doing what we love, keep the farm going, and hopefully make a little money along the way. Because we all know farming has a funny way of taking that money right back.
Some days you leave the sale barn feeling pretty good, and other days you leave scratching your head.
But I guess that’s farming. You learn a little, gamble a little, and get up the next morning to do it all over again. And again.