Host Lynsey McAnally (00:19):

Angus at Work, a podcast for the profit-minded cattleman. Brought to you by the Angus Beef Bulletin, we have news and information on health, nutrition, marketing, genetics and management. So let’s get to work, shall we?

 Hello and welcome back to Angus at Work. The cattle market has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the years. Despite ever-changing circumstances, many cattlemen are currently enjoying satisfying prices and investing in their operations, whether that's by paying down debt, building new facilities or seeking out even better genetics. I'm Lynsey McAnally, and — on today’s episode — Shauna Hermel visited with Trent Stewart, auctioneer and sales representative with Superior Livestock, and Troy Marshall, director of commercial industry relations for the American Angus Association, about the state of the cattle market, where to begin when looking to market your cattle and how your Angus genetics can pay off on sale day. So let’s dive in.

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Shauna Hermel (01:59):

Hello, and welcome to this edition of the Angus at Work podcast. I'm Shauna Hermel, your host for today. You know, according to the Industry Insights survey we conducted in 2023, about 50% of our audience starts calving here in February or March. As those calves hit the ground, we’ve probably got a pretty good idea of how we’re going to manage them, but maybe not so much how we’re going to market them. Yet, that can make a huge difference in the size of the price tag that we get for them at the end of our stint with those calves. I’ve heard it said that it could be the difference between taking your wife out for dinner or taking her to Cancun. I might like to go to Cancun. With that in mind, I’m super excited to introduce you to our guests for today’s podcast:

• Trent Stewart is a world champion livestock auctioneer who works for Superior Livestock Auctions; and
• Troy Marshall, our director of commercial industry relations here at the American Angus Association.

Trent, can you give us a little bit of background about how you got involved in the auctioneering business and kind of where your career track has brought you?

Trent Stewart (03:12):

Well good afternoon, Shauna, and thank you for having me. I started as an auctioneer in 1994. I was working in a local livestock market and wanted to be in the marketing side of the cattle business and went to the Missouri Auctioneer School. I followed up with another school, the World Champion College of Auctioneering, which was in Bakersfield, Calif., and had a great roster of teachers such as Skinner Hardy, Jim Pennington, Ralph Wade and Bob Tallman.

Shauna Hermel (03:46):

 ... A lot of champion auctioneers there.

Trent Stewart (03:48):

Well, they are great [spokesmen] for our industry and marketers. So it was very, very inspiring. I went on to be a field representative for Intermountain Livestock in LaGrand, Ore., and then came back to Madres, Ore., and became partners with a gentleman named Clay Tandler in this livestock market that I started in and now I own. We were partners for many years and I have since purchased the market from Clay. In the interim, I’ve become a Superior Livestock representative and auctioneer. Then that transgressed into a lot of purebred work. So there’s a long 30 years, condensed into about 45 seconds.

Shauna Hermel (04:37):

You’ve kind of seen the whole gambit on the sales side.

Trent Stewart (04:40):

Yes.

Shauna Hermel (04:41):

Troy, you have been with the [American Angus Association] for how many years now?

Troy Marshall (04:46):

Yeah, Shauna, I’ve been at the American Angus Association now just a little over five years. Prior to that, I worked at CattleFax and we had our own seedstock operation in eastern Colorado for about 25 years in the interim there.

Shauna Hermel (05:01):

And in your role now as director of commercial industry relations, you oversee some of the programs and services we have that would directly connect with this feeder-cattle market.

Troy Marshall (05:13):

That is correct. I worked primarily with the AngusLink program and of course the AngusVerified℠ and [GMS] there. I’m just really excited to have Trent on the podcast today as an auctioneer, a cattleman and a seedstock salesman. I think he just has a really unique perspective on the industry.

Shauna Hermel (05:31):

Excellent. And Troy’s kind of serving in a dual role. I'll ask him a couple questions along the way here, too, but he is definitely serving as a co-host today with all of his background and experience and in this, we sure wanted to have him participate today. I am editor with the Angus Beef Bulletin ^® and our audience is that commercial cow-calf producer who has purchased a registered Angus bull. We definitely have a charge to try and make sure that we help provide the programs and services and information that those cattlemen need to make the most of their investment in their Angus genetics. And so with that in mind, we’re going to tap into the expertise here today to talk about how cattlemen can go about getting a better marketing outlook for their calves. Then maybe tie that into an overall national market outlook as we go through.

Trent, could you give us a little history of Superior Livestock Auctions. How did it start out, and where has it evolved to today?

Trent Stewart (06:45):

Superior Livestock started out in 1988. Well, very close to 1988. Jim Odle [from] Rush, Colo., Buddy Jeffers from Amarillo, Texas and, later on, John McKinley all got together and started marketing cattle via satellite. And I believe they had one sale a year. The first one they had was right at the turn of the year, around New Year’s, in Denver. I want to say, I can’t quote the exact headcount, but it may have been 20,000.

Shauna Hermel (07:21):

Okay.

Trent Stewart (07:21):

I think the concept came from ... Jim Odle owned the livestock market in Brush. There [were] two of them, but he owned one of them. He had consigned a set of cattle that came out of, I believe, of the Steamboat area (Steamboat Springs, Colo.). The cattle came to Brush and then they were procured by a gentleman from Steamboat and he took them right back up there. He thought there’s got to be a more efficient way. Not only would it be more cost effective, but it’d be a lot less stress on the cattle.

They all got together in the industry and found the gentlemen and women in the industry that were handling large quantities of high-quality cattle at the time. Livestock brokers and dealers, some of the more prominent marketers in the industry and got them on board. [They] had a great business model, so everybody was lucrative for everybody and he had central pay. They’d put together one checkbook so everybody could run off of one bank checkbook. So monetarily, things were taken care of. They just had to use their contacts, their skills and their expertise in the feeder-cattle world or just in cow-calf production, feeders, replacement heifers, whatever it took ... All the relationships they had, but they had a great vehicle to drive at that point.

Shauna Hermel (08:46):

So when you cut the travel and transport out, that cuts that down on a lot of stress on those calves going through a sale barn.

Trent Stewart (08:56):

Yes, it did. As we all know, I own a livestock market and it does ... I think the real key to health, morbidity and mortality is stress. The less stress we can produce, the better they’re going to do no matter what their genetic makeup is or what kind of vaccines or protocols are behind the cattle.

Shauna Hermel (09:22):

And now Superior does participate with a lot of livestock markets today, as well as with what we consider the big video sales, correct?

Trent Stewart (09:32):

They do. A lot of the representatives that are associated own livestock markets [and] are also video representatives. I think it lends itself hand in hand. I’m a huge proponent of selling cattle at auction to the highest bidder. Market discovery has been the core of my life, but there’s times if a producer likes the market ... Say we’re mid-summer and [he] wants to get hedged up without doing any risk management at the CME, you can forward-contract your calves. It’s a very, very useful tool. A lot of times in this region that I work a lot in, we will sell maybe the big end of the steers early and keep the heifers and sell them to the livestock market in the fall. Or the light end or the very extreme heavy end. There’s some producers that go straight to the market still, especially if the cattle have a little weight variance and need to be sorted to fit different contemporary groups, whether going to grass or grain and things of that nature.

But wow, video marketing is one heck of a useful tool and revolutionized our industry.

Shauna Hermel (10:54):

Now you start one of the big spring sales here in a couple of weeks: the Gulf Coast Classic. Can you tell us a little bit about that sale and what you anticipate with it?

Trent Stewart (11:08):

Well, it’s Natchitoches, La. Rayburn Smith, one of the very, very prominent reps with Superior Livestock. He’s been involved forever, and many refer to him as the ‘Governor of Louisiana.’ He handles a lot of cattle down there for a lot of great people. That is his showcase sale. Now this year, because the market’s been so good, he’s pulled a lot of those cattle forward and we’ve already been marketing a lot of those cattle because, here we are again, people liked the market and wanted to take advantage of it. There’ll be some great cattle there. He has a big party and a crawfish boil. There’s a lot of culture in Louisiana!

Shauna Hermel (11:48):

So looking at your sale calendar, it looks like you have a sale about every two or three weeks. A lot of those are marked as video sales. Then you have the bigger sales that I guess are the Gulf Coast Classic, Corn Belt Classic, and then the others there in June and July. What's the difference between just a regular video sale vs. one of those named higher profile events?

Trent Stewart (12:14):

Well, the Corn Belt Classic used to be outside of Omaha, Neb. We’ve since moved it to south Sioux City. Iowa. That’s the one Superior Livestock auction that they had built where we take the cattle and offer an auction in a feeding corridor. We went to the buyers instead. The rest of the sales, we kind of cater to the sellers and stay in their regions, whether it's in Steamboat Springs, because we'll sell so many cattle in Colorado and the adjoining states or Winnemucca Nev., out there's a little closer to the Great Basin. But going to the consignors if you get my gist, and then furthermore into Sheridan (Wyo.) the same exact way. We’re following and trying to make it easy for those consignors to attend the sale. The only one that we don't do that at is the Corn Belt Classic. It's still a remarkably successful sale.

It's really fun because there's so many farmer-feeders that participate in that market over those two or three days when we offer a vast amount of cattle. We always have a really strong section of Montana calves that were raised in Montana that are big. A lot of them weigh [650 to 700 pounds (lb.)]. Feeder weight cattle with terrific genetics that come early and will make the April or May fat market. Those farmer-feeders in that region eat them alive.

Shauna Hermel (13:44):

Now you hold an event with the sale, too. I mean, the cattle aren't there, but the people are.

Trent Stewart (13:49):

Correct. There are a lot of buyers, a lot of sellers, a lot of camaraderie. That's another neat part about the video sales when we get together in different regions with different buyers. Some buyers, big corporate buyers attend all of them. Many of them, especially when it comes to stocker operators, they'll only come to one or two of them. It's good to get it together, visit about the industry. As you well know, our industry, we're offering a service. They're the ones selling the cattle, but it's a huge network of marketing and it's so good to get together in the camaraderie. We're all on the same team, so to speak, even though it's a competitive atmosphere.

Shauna Hermel (14:33):

So have you seen any kind of transition in the type of herds that are selling via video auction? I would assume you said the very first ones were some of those larger herds that went out in making those connections. Are you seeing that continue in that direction? Are you seeing things open up a little bit more?

Trent Stewart (14:56):

To answer your question, if there's 300 to 500 head of cattle on a ranch, I see a lot of producers, especially out west, wanting to market them on the video. Or at least a portion of them. They can have straight loads of steers or a straight load of heifers with plenty of wiggle room to make the cattle very, very even. Essentially you're doing an order buyer's job as a livestock representative for Superior. Those buyers, the first thing they look at is the weight break. They'll look at the commodity, "I need some five weight steers or I need some seven weight steers." And the very next thing, when they find that in the catalog, they'll go to the rep and see who the rep is and make sure that that rep has done a good job for them in the past because if they've had issues with a rep, they're liable to just turn the page.

... I think that they do really adhere to selling them at auction earlier, especially right now when the market is so good and has been so good for the last three years.

Shauna Hermel (16:12):

So as far as a producer sitting out there in cow country deciding whether or not he wants to go to a livestock auction market, a video sale or just try and put a little bit more marketing behind those calves however they do it ... Would contacting that rep be one of the first steps?

Trent Stewart (16:33):

It would be. That way they can both get together and analyze the cattle and say, "Do I have enough cattle to make even loads right now with not a lot of swing weight in them?" Are these cattle high enough quality to where they don't get misrepresented on the video because they're not able to put their eyes on them in living color. They're watching [on a] high def screen, which is useful, but a lot of times we profile the cattle. Here's what you're getting, you're not getting the 360 view. So you really have to have a lot of faith in who's delivering the cattle and the ranch that they're coming from. So often that reputation, not only for herd health, but also how easy the rancher is to get along with and wants to make things right and how fair he's going to be or she's going to be will really make a big difference on how those cattle market.

Shauna Hermel (17:25):

That would be one of the challenges from my mind is guessing what those cattle are going to be. If we have a drought, we might be videoing those cattle at 200 to 500 lb. lighter than what they'll be on delivery day. How do you coordinate that from the producer expectations, selling them to the buyer expectations, buying them.

Trent Stewart (17:49):

I use personally a lot of last year's footage. My delivery footage, and it's represented that way. We do some, especially with a new consignor or a consignor that sells us calves off the cow with same year footage. So you get a real representation of what they're going to look like as a little bit more mature animal. I always sell the cattle uneven, based on even so I could afford a little bit of swing weight and we try to stay close to last year's deliveries. Superior's got a huge database and they're trying to be very, very efficient and they try to help buyers and sellers and representatives to their utmost ability. So they'll provide last year's exact delivery weights [and] the net weight. We can work off of those and the headcounts. So if there's been any change, we sold more cows or things are drier, we can make those adjustments.

In the case that there's some kind of natural disaster such as fire ... We deal with that a lot out here. Just open communication with our buyers, letting them know the predicament that we're in, if we have to come early, if we can move them to a grow yard. They may be coming off a little bit different feed and come at a different time. What's remarkable about this industry, again, is there are pretty great people and there's a lot of honor. Those buyers are understanding and 99% of the time they want to work with a seller that's going through some kind of catastrophic change that was out of their control.

Shauna Hermel (19:29):

So could you maybe help walk me through on just kind of a calendar of, if I had those February, March calves, when do I need to be getting ahold of a rep to start helping me plan that marketing plan? If they go a video route, what happens along the way clear through to a pickup and delivery?

Trent Stewart (19:51):

I would reach ... Well, first of all, I would target the sale that you wanted to participate in and a lot of that will be which region that you're selling in. If you're in the Midwest, I would suggest going to the Corn Belt Classic. It's a great sale to kick off the season. If you're in the Rocky Mountains, I'd focus on Steamboat. And if you're in a Great Basin out west, I'd focus on Winnemucca. There's a lot of great cattle in between and we offer them on every sale, from every region. Those sale deadlines start in June, or actually mid-May, and they're usually several weeks ahead of the sales themselves because we've got a lot of production and big catalogs to produce. They've got to do a lot of video editing. I would suggest doing something by no later than June 1, getting in touch with a representative.

Shauna Hermel (20:55):

And then what will they ask of the consignor?

Trent Stewart (20:59):

What are you selling? I mean, what commodity are we working with? What are you thinking about putting on the sale headcount wise? Are they weaned? Are you going to sell them off the cow? That producer or the representative's going to advise vaccination protocols, at least double vaccine, if not triple vaccinating these calves. Using modified live vaccines, things of that nature, making sure, advising them, if you're going to wean them to wean them the right amount of time. To administer the vaccines in the right time period, too. To minimize stress. Then there will be value-added programs that will be brought up. And then they'll talk about genetics and where they've been buying their bulls, maybe some lineage in the cows, how long the ranch has been in production, which kinds of feed that they come off of.

What frame score are the cattle? What flesh will the cattle be in? And then a delivery window: a time and place that we are going to pick the cattle up, take delivery, all things of that nature. And get it fresh in your mindabout how they want to ... Not only what sale they want to participate in, but what portion of their cattle, if not all, do they want to market that day?

Shauna Hermel (22:23):

And then you said that it was best probably to try and pick the sale close to your region, but say something happened that the cattle weren't quite ready. Can they switch from one sale to another?

Trent Stewart (22:36):

Yes, they can. And the reason why I bring up in your region, if you can sell with your like neighbors and create a market because the freight's already been figured in to a buyer's mind, when they sit down and [know] we're going to participate today on 35,000 cattle that are all in Colorado and Nebraska. They've already had regionally the freight figured, and it will create a market ... Auctions are momentum. There's a lot of momentum in them. Once we get those markets created, then you can sell in that same region in that market, rather than bouncing from there, is what I'm getting at. Then going to Louisiana or going to Oregon. So that's why I favor selling with your contemporary group just regionally.

Shauna Hermel (23:30):

That makes a lot of sense.

Trent Stewart (23:31):

You can change, of course, and move the cattle if you don't like the market to another sale. And it's fairly affordable to do that. Superior drives their best to work with everybody if they don't like the market, because they don't want to lose the business. No one understands it's a residual business and they really appreciate all their consignors. And last year, I believe we had 6,100 consignors or 6,150.

Shauna Hermel (24:03):

That's a lot of people.

Trent Stewart (24:06):

It's quite a machine. We've sold 1.72 million cattle in 41 different states and there were 482 representatives.

Troy Marshall (24:19):

Along those lines, Trent, you see thousands of groups of calves every year, which is a pretty unique position to be looking at the industry. What do you see are some of the biggest mistakes producers make when marketing their cattle?

Trent Stewart (24:32):

Picking the right rep. Honestly, as an auctioneer for Superior Livestock for a long time, when I'm sitting behind that mic, you can tell the representatives that are very, very successful because every phone will be off the hook and the internet will be turning bids in like crazy. So find the very best rep you can. Then I would say making sure that you vaccinate the cattle correctly and wean them for the appropriate amount of time. That's very, very costly. Other than that, I would say that the biggest monetary loss that I've witnessed is by not selling at auction. Liking a market and taking just a bid in the country and then finding out 10 days later that you've left $20 or $30 or $40 a hundred on the table. I've seen that ... witnessed that a lot in my life. All this hard work, it's not just 365 days before you get a paycheck, but it's generations and a lot of time on cow families and just enduring the elements.

For a long time, a market that really wasn't that lucrative. And so just make sure you put them in front of the biggest audience that you possibly can because everybody wants first choice. They want the first shot at them. In an auction, that's the only way to do it. Give everybody the first option, not the second one.

Troy Marshall (26:07):

I love that. This is a loaded question because you've hit on price discovery and price transparency and the value of genetics and health and, of course, relationships. I appreciate that you've hit all those topics already, but if you were to give a cow-calf producer one piece of advice to add value tomorrow, what would you tell me or her, I should say?

Trent Stewart (26:32):

I would say buy the very best bulls that you can afford. That's always been my MO because the highest priced bull certainly is not the most expensive one. If you get the genetics working for you ... We see more and more of it. There's enough value. People are getting healed up and they're able to finally, this year, they've come to me more than once - almost weekly - and said, "I can finally afford to buy the bulls I want." That is so neat. We are going to just expand, I think, the progress of our genetics very rapidly right now because of that. As an auctioneer sitting on the auction box selling bulls, they see it. They want to buy the cream of the crop now. They want to buy the good ones and they're willing to give $12,000 to $25,000 for them.

The cattlemen are. Not just seedstock guys. The ones kind of in between? They're a little bit flatter numbered or a little bit plainer in stature and don't have a phenotype? They don't want them. And that's what we've been trying to teach everybody to do or striving for to make everything a whole lot better for every link in the chain. It's happening. So the very first thing I would talk about would be genetics. And you guys are right in the heart of it.

Shauna Hermel (28:00):

So are you seeing some price differentiation on those feeder calves on the verified genetics to the herd sires and those seed stock operations that are known for ...

Trent Stewart (28:12):

Yes, I am. I am definitely, I mean, all the tools that we've produced, whether it's through DNA, these EPDs, any kind of information that we can offer has been very, very effective. As advanced as we get with ET work, in-vitro and flushing the very best cows and speeding up all this accuracy, I found it very interesting this year that they were really receptive to 205-day weights. We've got all this other fantastic information that's out there, like I said, with DNA and so forth. A lot of cow-calf producers were just zoomed in on that 205-day weight and wanted it to be 650 to 800 lb. If it were, they were willing to give big money for them. If they fell below that, they had no interest. I thought, boy, there's something that's really simple going. We have all this other information and really when it comes down to the brass tacks, that might be just what it's all about when the markets is good.

Shauna Hermel (29:25):

So now we've had people talking about wanting to take cattle, of course, with shortage of cattle going to the feedlots and carrying to heavier weights. Has that changed a little bit of the phenotype or genotype, too, of the calf that is in demand by the buyer?

Trent Stewart (29:46):

Yes, it has. I think that the big key is what everybody's striving for: a moderate frame score. Geographically, yes, they like them a little bit more moderate here on the high desert. [As] you get into the northern regions, they'd like a little bit more power in them. These feeders are adamant that they want carcass weight. So we got to make sure even if we make them more moderate, that they are very wide strung and there's a ton of carcass weight, red meat, muscle inside the cattle because they want them to weigh north of 1,500 lb. I think that a lot of that has to do with feed because we've got, of course, a really affordable cost to gain right now. Sub $1. They're real adamant that even if they're a calf, we need to get north of 1,500 and they want to push these yearlings to 1,600.

Troy Marshall (30:39):

Well, that kind of brings us to jumping a little bit, but where do you think we are in the cattle cycle right now? And, more importantly, what should producers be considering or planning in their overall strategy with where we are in today's cattle cycle?

Trent Stewart (30:55):

I'd pay off some debt if it were me right now and try to keep the very best genetics that you can. Strengthen up the cow herd because we know that it will adjust at some point. Right now, it's very, very dry out west. This is the most mild winter that I can remember in my lifetime out here. We've had days that were nearing 80 degrees in central Oregon in March and there's very limited snowpack. So I think that is going to limit expansion, like herd expansion somewhat and buy us some more time. I think that we're two to three years out, honestly. That's subconsciously optimistic from building the cow herd up. But in 2014, I thought that, too. It seemed like it was overnight that all of a sudden our numbers were back. I think we do build it faster than we think.

That's why I say I'm cautiously optimistic, but weather's going to dictate some of that out here. However, on the other side of things, it's been such a great market. A lot of people kept heifers back because they didn't want to take any more income either. Two years ago or a year ago, they were saying, "We can't afford not to sell them because they're bringing so much money." This year, on the contrary, they're going, "We don't want to take any more income and we're going to build more cows and keep some heifers."

Shauna Hermel (32:19):

What type of effect do you think the fires in Nebraska ... We're approaching nearly a million acres burnt. What does that do to the cattle cycle picture in terms of calves coming to town, in terms of stocker operations having grass?

Trent Stewart (32:40):

Well, obviously it's a very, very negative effect. It is catastrophic. It's so, so sad. Our hearts go out to all those ranchers that are having to endure that. Like I said, we deal with a lot of fire out here and a lot of ... In my opinion, it's my opinion only, but we should be managing our forest differently out here. There needs to be more logging. It needs to be thinned and grazed more than it is now. We've just devastated so much natural resource. I know what they're going through and to have to rebuild all of that is just, oh, it's heart wrenching. And yes, there will be a huge void in those who buy stockers to run there and probably the amount of feeders that come out of Nebraska because of it.

Troy Marshall (33:29):

Well, I'll jump in here. Trent is kind of a bigger picture side of things. Where do you think the biggest opportunity is in the cattle business right now, or what are you most excited about?

Trent Stewart (33:42):

I'm most excited about the genetics, honestly. To be able to have a product that every time the gate opens, you've got a high quality set of livestock because people can afford to do it. I don't think that the industry has been any more progressive than it is today. We've got some seedstock operators that have invested vast amounts of capital into cow herds. We're so lucky that they're doing that and have changed the way we're doing business. It doesn't matter whether you're a livestock market owner, a stocker operator, a feedyard operator, cattle feeder, just the efficiency of the cattle and the grade that we're getting out of the cattle. It's been feeding every link in the chain. So I'd say that's what's probably the most inspiring to me. With what these cattle cost, they have to perform. I mean, my goodness, they're $250,000 a load for stocker cattle. It's wild.

Shauna Hermel (34:41):

So do you have any …

Troy Marshall (34:42):

How would you just ... Oh, sorry! Go ahead, Shauna.

Shauna Hermel (34:45):

Oh, you go ahead. That's fine.

Troy Marshall (34:47):

Well, no, you mentioned the prices we're at. The amount of risk producers [are taking]. And I was just ... If you were to describe this market today, what would be the two words you'd describe it?

Trent Stewart (34:56):

Astronomical. Here's three words: on the moon. Very high. Every day we see new highs and we defy gravity all the time. Things worldwide can be upside down and the cattle market has continued to thrive. Or at least hold its line. I think that there's a lot of demand out there for it. We've never created a better product. That's what it all comes down to. What's on a plate, right? So we just have to have a functional cow to go with it, but we can't leave that out. We're trying to create the anomaly of great maternal genetics and having a carcass. It's been very, very hard to do for a very long time, but we're getting there. We're seeing a lot more functional cattle that have a ton of grade in them.

Troy Marshall (35:51):

Along those lines, I'm slipping in a little commercial and apologize for that. But with programs like AngusLink trying to bring more transparency and consistency within the market, what is your perspective on that type of effort?

Trent Stewart (36:08):

I think it's great. Again, more information. So you're talking about your genetic scorecards?

Troy Marshall (36:13):

The [GMS], yeah.

Trent Stewart (36:15):

Yeah.

Troy Marshall (36:15):

Sorry about that.

Trent Stewart (36:18):

As an auctioneer, sitting on an auction block for Superior, we have about 45 seconds to add as much value to a set of cattle as possible. And we do that with all those icons. So those scores are up there and I can reference them or any of my colleagues can reference them while they're selling a producer's cattle. It adds value. These big commercial, or I should say corporate, feedyards they have a giant task at hand trying to procure as many cattle as it's going to take to fill up all that bunk space. They don't have the time to study every Angus pedigree that's out there or whichever breed it is, and know or understand the value differences in all of them. Yes, they might know a certain ranch that their cattle feed their heads off and just perform and don't get sick.

And they've had great success with in the past. And believe me, obviously they track every one of them. When those genetics are changing all the time and those different lineages are there and you can help with those scores? I can reference them. I've watched their heads pick up out of their catalog when I start talking about the cattle and talking about the genetic side of them. They will have faith in what we're trying to educate about or trying to just enlighten them about and will get in and participate. And it's very gratifying to me that they trust me that much and believe in you that this is behind the cattle, these are the traits that do exist and we've done all the due diligence. Angus is behind them. I can see it making five to 10 cents difference almost every time, as long as the scores are there and they're above average.

Shauna Hermel (38:06):

Are you seeing it start to add value to some of those heifer lots in comparison? I know we just added the maternal score not too long ago to the [GMS]. Are you seeing people really start honing in on that?

Trent Stewart (38:21):

Right now we do. We've seen a lot more heifers being procured for replacements as of late, especially high quality registered cattle. I think they're paying attention to those, the maternal side of that. They're really focused on the cow herds that they're coming out of and they're following the pedigrees as much as anything, but it's definitely all information we can offer is going to help.

Shauna Hermel (38:54):

As far as the market outlook, what are you looking at here over the summertime and into next fall? What's your projection for where prices of both the feeder-calf, feeders, and maybe seedstock as well.

Trent Stewart (39:14):

Well, all I could do is look at the CME. It's supposed to predict the futures.

So I think as a hunch, we could be looking at fat cattle bringing somewhere around $230. These feeder cattle bringing $350. Well, these eight weight cattle, I think that corn will stay, at this point, it looks like it'll stay fairly affordable. So our cost of gain will be good enough to support those yearlings at that level. Could still see some six weight cattle bring $4-something. I think it'll be very close to what we did or experienced last year, and maybe it'll take higher, but I guess we'll find out when we get there, but it'll be similar, it looks like.

Troy Marshall (40:02):

I'm excited.

Trent Stewart (40:04):

Me, too.

Shauna Hermel (40:09):

Trent, can you help explain kind of what happens in between the time the cattle are sold and when a buyer might pick up. What can a producer expect and maybe what's expected of the person who sold the cattle but still has them on the ranch?

Trent Stewart (40:27):

Okay. If I could back up just a little bit and let's go and we're in the spring of the year and our calves are on the ground and we've got them branded. I would call Superior Livestock or reference them online because superiorlivestock.com. Find a representative that's close to you or maybe you already know one. Find a worthy representative, get in touch with them and tell them about what you're thinking about marketing and the timeframe that you're going to do it. Have it in mind already. Should I wean them? Should I not wean them? Have those questions for your representative? Which vaccines should I use? Which value-added program? Should we make them NHTC, non-hormone treated cattle? Should we make them all-natural? It changes all the time right now because there's different meat deals out there where they're looking for all-natural meat or not, so forth.

The market dictates that. Then make a date to get together with that representative. They'll more than likely come out to the ranch within several weeks and tour the cattle, do a ranch visit, get some good video of the cattle. If you can, always get the sun behind your back and have the cattle with five or six of them going down a fence line, single file. I know it seems trivial, but it really makes a big difference to have a good profile shot of the cattle. Try to get everything in two weeks prior to sale time and make sure that you have all your terms as pedigree goes and where you've been buying your bulls, all your [GMS] information in place with Angus. Then when we get to point of sale, have open line of communication. With your reps that can be either on the phone with you or you've decided what you think the market should be because that's the freedom about selling on the video too, is picking a price.

It does not have to be an absolute sale. I encourage it, but a good rep will get you the market anyhow. And that's all we're looking for that day is to just sell within the market. Once that is accomplished within ... It depends if it's immediate delivery or not. If it's for a deferred delivery, it might be several months before you set up a delivery. Usually you do it within 30 days of the cattle delivering, because a lot of these feeding operations are so busy, they're just trying to take care of what's right in front of them the next 30 days or 45 days as far as slotting the cattle and picking them up. And so then when that's ... We've made a decision on when we're going to get them because there will be a delivery window and you can make it as long as a month, you can make it for one single day that you have to get them. I always encourage about a 10-day window, 10 -ay to two week window, because everybody always wants to go at once, especially in the fall of the year because we're predominantly spring calvers. Then when we got to get to the delivery, or whoever your representative is at the delivery, brings you the cattle, weigh the cattle, sort them up for size and kind, and try to make them fit the contract to a T and do the very, very best job we can because it's a residual business we want to get. Just give them exactly what we sold and the Superior representative will write a customer, cow-calf operator, a check for the cattle at that time and Superior will collect those funds from that buyer.

The buyer's the one who furnishes the trucks 99% of the time. So it's really a pretty user-friendly transaction as long as there's a whole lot of organization.

Shauna Hermel (44:12):

So as far as where to pick up those cattle, whether it be on the ranch or potentially a local sale barn?

Trent Stewart (44:21):

You can do it at different delivery locations. Ninety percent of the time it's at the ranch. Sometimes we will consolidate the cattle or commingle the cattle. Maybe if there's several smaller producers that want to put all their calves together and sell them, and maybe it's at a delivery point, like you say, whether it's a stockyards or just a set of pens somewhere else that works for them. There's lots of different ways to do it. All we got to do is find a certified scale, whether it's on the ground, which is always preferable, or a truck scale. That will work as well. Uually you'll see higher receipts and I think it's fair business for everybody doing it on the ground.

Shauna Hermel (45:00):

So I'll ask this of maybe both of you ... Wrap up for people looking at marketing their calves: what would be your three or four top tips for ensuring the most successful outcome?

Trent Stewart (45:16):

Superior livestock offers full circle marketing. So with Superior productions and their purebred platform, they're involved in the full sales. Having that relationship with them and being an auctioneer for Superior? Being fortunate enough to sit on a lot of auction box while I'm selling those genetics to a producer that I am going to help market their cattle six months or 12 months later or 18 months later is very, very gratifying to me being able to tell that story. That's why I love working for Superior Livestock, to be able to start at grassroots and sell them the bulls or sell them some replacement heifers. I know that he's carcass-oriented or these bulls that XYZ ranches are all maternally-oriented and being able to take that to the auction block in Winnemucca, Nev., and being able to sit on that auction block and give that producers their due time. Let them know how much investment has been made, how old the ranch is, what lineage they've been after, how good they are at procuring and how selective they are about getting their bulls and keeping their replacement heifers. Being able to tell that whole story for Superior, I think has a huge, huge value. And then going back to selecting the right rep as well to work for you and just stay with the same time period when you sell your cattle. I've seen great success with that. You pick one sale day every year because those buyers are looking for that, those cattle at that time of year. Because that's what they're used to. Vaccination protocols behind them, if they're in NHTC or they're all-natural. Get them in a third party program as well, whoever you go through, but make sure that the cattle are enrolled that way. There's a whole lot of extra value and make sure that we know the genetic makeup of those cattle.

Troy Marshall (47:33):

I think Trent nailed it. To me, marketing really is about telling the story. As he kind of referenced as well, this is a people business and I think we know genetics and health are really important and it's just kind of how do we document that information? How do we present it? And when I look at marketing, I think a lot of marketing today is about managing risk or reducing risk. I think that market access and market flexibility through some of these programs is a real opportunity. Making sure you get the right cattle in front of the right people at the right time is just that short little scenario is pretty accurate. I think programs like AngusLink, the Genetic Merit Scorecard and AngusVerified are just some of those ways to document what these producers are doing and the investment they're making in their genetics. Hopefully, we can help differentiate those cattle a little more in the marketplace. That's the thing that I think is most exciting to me is that we are seeing cattle get differentiated based on value more and more in today's marketplace.

Trent Stewart (48:43):

Well said.

Shauna Hermel (48:46):

Excellent. Well, Troy, thank you for joining us here today on Angus at Work. We know that people can go to the website to find out more information. Trent, for Superior, can you share a little bit about where they can go to learn more on Superior Livestock Auctions?

Trent Stewart (49:07):

Well, you can of course go to their superiorlivestock.com, but there is a new website that they came out with that National built and why I say that the parent company of Superior Livestock, that's called Seedstocked. I don't know whether you're familiar with it or not. They just launched it about three weeks ago. It's a central location that you can go and watch any sale on any platform that's out there. What I mean is any of our competitors, it's not biased to Superior. Any sale that's going on that day, so you don't miss a seedstock production sale, but then it also has a huge directory in there of seed stock operators and a map that you can go to all these different array of purebred organizations, but it's got auctioneers on there as well as sale managers. It's a great resource that they just came out with.

And at the time being, it's free. It doesn't cost anything. It's just linking everybody together and trying to produce higher receipts for everybody, making sure that everybody has this great resource that they can invest in. But again, Superior's website, superiorlivestock.com, or this new one is Seed-Stocked. And I'd invite you or encourage all of you to check it out. It's pretty neat. Oh, and on another front, they have ...

When you sell with Superior Livestock, going back to the full circle marketing, a production outfit, and you're investing in Superior Purebred Auctions. When your customers can sell in the summer sale, as a producer, say you're Rob Thomas at Thomas Angus Ranch, when a set of his customers calves sell, he will get those receipts emailed to them so he has knowledge of what their calves brought and could go out and congratulate them. Pretty neat deal. That's one thing I like about Superior Livestock. It's very full circle marketing.

Shauna Hermel (51:16):

Nice customer service. And Troy, to learn more about AngusLink and the Genetic Merit Scorecard?

Troy Marshall (51:25):

They can just go to American Angus Association website or anguslink.com. Click on that, get all the information there on the websites and feel free to call us as well at the American Angus Association and just ask for us at AngusLink.

Shauna Hermel (51:40):

Trent and Troy, is there anything that you think that we missed to make this a nice piece for our audience?

Trent Stewart (51:49):

I think it was fairly well covered.

Troy Marshall (51:51):

I knew I wasn't going to have to say much when we had Trent online. He did an awesome job.

Trent Stewart (51:58):

Well, sorry if I was a little too windy.

Troy Marshall (52:00):

No, no, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it that way. I just meant I was just going to shut up and listen. So it was really good, I thought.

Shauna Hermel (52:08):

So, Trent, generally we wrap up our Angus at Work podcast by sharing something that is super good in your life, whether on a professional level or on a personal level.

Trent Stewart (52:19):

Well, I have two healthy children that are just about growing up. One is 21, she's out on her own, and one is 18. I'm very, very blessed with them and their health and a wonderful wife that has stood behind me and endorsed things and been just a whole lot of strength for many, many years in my career and my life. I really couldn't ask for a whole lot more.

Troy Marshall (52:44):

Well said.

Shauna Hermel (52:46):

Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you once again.

Host Lynsey McAnally (52:54):

Listeners, for more information on making Angus work for you, check out the Angus Beef Bulletin and the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. You can subscribe to both publications in the show notes. If you have questions or comments, let us know at abbeditorial@angus.org and we would appreciate it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode with any other profit-minded cattlemen. Thanks for listening. This has been Angus at Work!