By Glenn Selk (Adapted from Troxel, et al. 2006)

At the recent American Society of Animal Science meetings, Dr. Tom Troxel of the University of Arkansas presented information about factors that affect sale price of Arkansas beef calves as they were marketed in fifteen Arkansas livestock auction markets in 2005. He reported on data from over 100,000 head of calves sold in 52,401 lots. Several very interesting price differences were noted. Calves selling as groups of six head or more brought $122.61/hundredweight, while calves selling as singles sold for $117.26/hundredweight. Once again, producing uniform groups of calves that are marketed together has added value. Healthy appearing calves of unknown “processing” brought $118.21, which was more than calves with “dead” hair ($105.55), stale-looking calves ($100.01), sick calves ($80.22), bad eyes ($104.39) or lame ($84.74) calves. However, if the calves were announced as “preconditioned”, they sold for a higher price ($122.36) compared to the healthy unknown ($118.21) calves. Polled calves still sell for more than horned calves by $3.70 per hundredweight and the difference between steers and bulls was $6.27 per hundredweight. Very full or “tanked” calves were discounted about $10 to $17 per hundredweight compared to calves that appeared to have normal shrink. Much of this data is very consistent to information reported by the Arkansas group several years ago. Likewise, Eastern Oklahoma county extension educators found many of the same prices differentials in 1997 and again in 1999 when they collected data from fourteen Oklahoma auction markets. The bottom line continues to be: that properly managed, process-verified, calves that are sold in group lots will bring home the most dollars. Source: Troxel, et al. J. Anim. Sci. Vol. 84. Suppl. 1.