Some old goats never die

Mini Horses

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Only livestock auction close to me is one for goats/sheep -- occasionally someone will bring bottle calves, a pet pig, llama, etc. Since it is a fairly controlled auction, most are there for commercial herds We have a good market for meat animals & several buyers are there for purchase to resell -- sooner or later. You have many who are just selling the kids from small, home herds, as a way to offset some feed costs at "hobby farms". I do see some elders downsizing & that can lead to some great buys! Nice animals, just needing new homes. I sell my weaned bucklings -- their moms are my milkers. My area has several farms where they keep animals to help maintain the land, fun retirement and just want to sell kids, keep smaller herds, etc. The prices have been nice and most often the sellers are there to talk with. Sold & gone, no phone calls, tire kickers, etc. Nice.

Now, horse auctions are where you really have to be careful, IMO. It is a situation where there are more "poor used car" salesmen tactics.
 

Mr Fixit

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Only livestock auction close to me is one for goats/sheep -- occasionally someone will bring bottle calves, a pet pig, llama, etc. Since it is a fairly controlled auction, most are there for commercial herds We have a good market for meat animals & several buyers are there for purchase to resell -- sooner or later. You have many who are just selling the kids from small, home herds, as a way to offset some feed costs at "hobby farms". I do see some elders downsizing & that can lead to some great buys! Nice animals, just needing new homes. I sell my weaned bucklings -- their moms are my milkers. My area has several farms where they keep animals to help maintain the land, fun retirement and just want to sell kids, keep smaller herds, etc. The prices have been nice and most often the sellers are there to talk with. Sold & gone, no phone calls, tire kickers, etc. Nice.

Now, horse auctions are where you really have to be careful, IMO. It is a situation where there are more "poor used car" salesmen tactics.
Very helpful, we operate a hobby farm with mixed breed "brush" goats. Tried for a month to sale my big buck after buying another buck off craigslist(to diversify our small herd). If you need to move a animal fast I would recommend the auction.
 

misfitmorgan

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It's more that people absolutely new to livestock go to sale barns thinking they want a nice cute goat and what they get is a problem goat, loaded up on worms, or a very old goat or one with a udder that is useless. There is nothing really wrong with selling those animals for meat but new people dont see that, they just see hey this goat is only $75 and I saw on CL or FB or etc that they wanted $150-400 for the same looking goat. They take thise very old, sick, weak, or mean animal home and start loving it and it costs them $100's in vet bills or dies. Seasoned livestock owners are much better equiped to handle loss of livestock then someone new to it with only one goat. That's another problem no one tells them goats/sheep need to be in pairs at least. We see a lot of people on this forum who learn the hard way to either not use a sale barn or exspect the worst. Where i live the only animals going in the sale barns are cull animals, as long as you know that going in your fine.

I'm not saying there are not good animals at the sale barn just more often then not thats not the case at least not locally for us.
 
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