Private Treaty Verses Auction Sales

We wish to express our sincere gratitude to the many folks who have come to Dora Lee over the years to purchase seed stock from us. Private treaty sales have been very rewarding to us and something we very much appreciate and enjoy.

This topic, “private treaty verses auction sales” has been debated for a long time and will be for many more years to come. We believe that there is a time and place for both.  

As time goes on, private treaty sales of livestock and semen has increased here at Dora Lee and is approaching 75%. With internet and web sites now being a valuable tool in assisting private sales, we see this percentage increasing.

As for the auction ring, it is an opportunity to take the genetics you have worked so hard to produce to town and showcase them along side many of your fellow breeders who have also brought their cattle out. The evaluation process by perhaps upwards of 2 or 3 hundred cattle folks is also a plus. When the hammer drops, let’s face it, unlike private sales, there is no saying “no thank you”. Win, lose or draw, your animal is sold to the highest bidder. We believe that both private treaty and auction has works well for us over the years and fully expect to continue with both options.

Now about our private treaty bull sales, we are able to develop them in our own facility on a ration that is roughage based with a limited amount of grain. Come spring these herd sire prospects are in breeding condition and ready to go out into our industry. There is no reason to pick him up sale day as we continue with the development process until pasture time or when ever our customers want delivery. We have never had a problem here agreeing on a price that is fair market value between buyer and seller and very much appreciate the dialogue previous to the sale taking place.

 Let’s face it, we very much appreciate the private option as there is much more time to get to know your customer and his or her individual needs and wants. We feel important traits such as calving ease and birth weights need to be discussed.  Is your customer planning on using his new bull on heifers? What about his genomic score, how important is his feed efficiency score? His or her mother is here. Would you like to have a look at her? Most of our bulls now are polled. Is this an important trait for you? Yes, I could go on. However we feel that a half hour discussion previous to the purchase is time well spent.

 Simply put, these are “our thoughts’ and they work for us. They may or may not work for others. If, by chance, you are reading this article and want to wade in on this topic your feed back would be very much appreciated.