Five Tips To Find a Bull
Online sale books help you save time while finding your next herd sire.
March 16, 2026
Jeff Goodnight knows the struggle of juggling a cattle operation with an off-the-farm job, as well as family life. The third-generation cattleman from Billings, Mo., manages his own operation and helps with his dad’s and his son’s cattle, in addition to practicing law. He’s become an avid user of the Angus website, https://www.angus.org/angus-media/buyers/sale-books, to view sale books when searching for bulls for their family operations’ needs.
“[Searching sale books online] cuts down on your time and sifts it down to what you really need,” says Goodnight. “It takes a time or two to play with it, but once you do, it’s user-friendly.”
Goodnight says the main advantage of viewing sale books online is being able to get a better idea of which sales they’d like to attend and which animals they’re interested in before traveling to sales.
It’s not that Goodnight believes photos and videos are a substitute for seeing cattle in the flesh, though.
“You still need to [see cattle] in person, but it cuts down a lot on the work,” he says. “It’s a lot of time and expense to go to one, time away from what I need to be doing at the farm, so I need to know that it’s worth my time to go. So that’s why I use those features to sift through all that data and hone it down to what I’m really looking for.”
Goodnight is in good company. The Angus website saw nearly 70 million page views last year, with more than 30 million of those being sale book pages.
“The Angus website, and particularly the sale book lookup, is where most progressive Angus genetics are supplied,” says Benjie Lemon, Angus Media president. “It’s the most powerful resource in the market for people to search for their next herd sire or their next battery of bulls.”
Besides sale books for events that will be in a live-auction format, there are private-treaty sale books, sire directories and state publications available to flip through.
Producers also often add their sale supplements with lot order, update sheets, or any other important sale day information.
Following are five tips for effective tools you can use while searching for your next herd sire in Angus sale books online.
“It’s the most powerful resource in the market for people to search for their next herd sire or their next battery of bulls,” says Angus Media President Benjie Lemon of the Angus Sale Book website.
1. EZ view 
To see lot photos and videos bigger, click on the EZ View button at the top right of the screen. Then click on the arrows on either side of the image to scroll through additional images and the expected progeny differences (EPDs) to see them larger as well. Footnotes also become easier to read in this view.
Sale book view
EZ view
You can even pull the sale book up on your TV to see the photos and videos bigger than on your phone or on your computer screen, Goodnight points out. “You can do all this stuff in your living room if you want to. I think it’s worth it, looking at a screen that’s bigger, because sometimes you need to look at the whole picture.”
EZ View is only available on books built by Angus Media.
2. EPD search 
You can set criteria to search for traits within certain parameters to narrow the field of animals that might fit your needs. You can set requirements for traits such as PAP (pulmonary arterial pressure) or calving ease; or search for sons of a particular sire.
“My son’s looking for a donor cow that he can flush to make PGS females,” Goodnight says. “We did a sort based on $Maternal and $C (combined value), and we tried to look at the top 5% of the breed on both of those after we identified some females that we like … If there’s several hundred head in there, you can hone that down to 15 or 20.”
These searches can be conducted within one sale book or applied across all sale books that have been made searchable. You can also search within a set mile radius. Those search results can be downloaded as an Excel® file and emailed to yourself or other parties.
EPD searches can be conducted across one sale book or all searchable sale books. 
“[The EPDs] are current as of every Friday, when they are updated,” Lemon says of the online sale books created by Angus Media. “You can have the utmost confidence in the currentness of the data included within that sale book.”
Some sale books arrive camera ready, meaning they were created externally and sent in as completed books, so they don’t include that powerful feature, Lemon says.
Similarly, not all sale books are searchable. This feature is standard for books built by Angus Media; it can be added to camera-ready books with an upgrade to make them searchable.
3. Watchlist 
Another handy feature for books that have been made searchable is the ability to ask for automated updates/reminders on animals in which you are interested. Animals saved to a list can be added to a “watchlist.” Animals can also be added to a watchlist manually.
To add animals, click the watchlist button to the right of the lot, then save/send watchlist. Fill out the fields, where you can elect to be sent a reminder from two weeks before to one hour before the sale. Be sure to include any comments for others or yourself in the notes section. You can then email the lists or share them by social media apps.
Adding animals to a watchlist and sharing and/or scheduling a reminder email can be a handy feature.
“I sent a copy of the watchlist to my son … He was able to then look it up and see which ones I was thinking,” Goodnight says. “It even has the ability for him to say, ‘Dad, what are you thinking here?’”
4. Request a sale book 
Prefer to also receive a printed copy of the sale book? You can request a sale book be mailed to you. Simply click the “Request a Sale Book” option and fill out the form. The request will go to the breeder who posted the book.
“Virtually every seedstock supplier is sitting there with copies ready to send to those who want to get that paper copy to crawl up in a La-z-boy® and study,” Lemon says.
Also, if you come across a bull of interest but are unfamiliar with the operation, Lemon suggests contacting the regional manager in that region for additional insight.
5. Parental average EPDs 
This recently added feature allows you to see EPD averages between the listed sire and the dam for lots such as pregnancies or embryos. This could, for instance, be included in a footnote of a cow selling with an as-yet unregistered calf at side. Sale books with live EPDs can include these averages, which will update every Friday. As these parent averages are only available in books with live EPDs, these are another feature only available in books created by Angus Media.
These values are not calculated through the weekly genetic evaluation. The actual EPDs for individual progeny are likely to vary from the expected values listed.
Thus, there is no guarantee that the calf’s EPDs will be the same once registered. But they should allow prospective buyers a better picture of the calf’s potential based on the average of its parents’ EPDs.
Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA, Vol. 18, No. 3-B
Guided by feedback Since the introduction of the Pasture to PublishSM sale book portal in 2020, new features have been launched to enhance the functionality and efficiency of the sale books posted there.
“Every month there’s something new,” says Gail Lombardino, Angus Media Print Services team lead. Looking to the future, she says there are additional improvements currently in development to add to the toolbox for those using sale books online.
“We’ve taken a bunch of input from our breeders and our sale managers to make Pasture to Publish better for both those who are creating the sale book, as well as those who are viewing the sale book,” says Rachel Anne Hunter, senior coordinator for Angus Media Print Services. “Any time anyone has input on things they would like to see or questions as to ‘Why can’t it do this?’ — that is how Pasture to Publish has been developed.
“We continually are looking to improve it and make it even more useful for the breeders, whether they’re creating their sale book or viewing sale books online.”
Digital EXTRAs
For quick video clips to see how these features work, an entire learning series is available online. Videos 26-29 cover EZ View, searching by EPDs, the watchlist, and how to request a sale book.
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