Northern Michigan Livestock Market

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Around noon we headed over to NML Market in Gaylord, MI to meet with Dr. Bob Robinson and Sara (a vet tech that worked in the office to check the animals in). First we sat with Sara and two others to observe how all the animals were checked in. Dwayne, a sweet, sweet old man, sat at the window while sellers approached him and told them what they were selling for the day. By hand, Dwayne would record each individual animal in a receipt booklet and assign them back tag numbers that are followed as the animals are moved through the market. After he is finished, he gives the producer a receipt and hands off the written information to his partner (whom I have forgotten the name of). She writes the information down again in a separate record keeping notepad as a second check-in for the animals. Once she is through recording, she passes the recipts over to Sara who works on the computer and checks the animals in officially. Her system is updated as the vets out in the barn are scanning the RFIDs of the animals. When they update their PDA, the information is sent to her computer so she can have every back tag associated with the appropraite RFID. Sara also checks to see if the premise the animals are arriving from have been Wildlife Risk Verified (WRV). Again, this is important to sellers at markets because they will receive more money for each animals if their property is WRV than if they're not. I asked Dr. Robinson how they let buyers know if they're bidding on an animal that has not been WRV and he said they announce it before that round begins.

Once we watched the check-in process for a while, we jumped out with Dr. Robinson in the pens to scan some animals in, ear tag if necessary, and back tag each animal. Their set up was pretty efficient with a cemented alley for us to tend to two separate, single-file walkways. As cattle came off the truck, workers file them into the alleys and packed them in for us to record. From there, they were released into the market and penned according to premise origin.

After a while of helping check in, we walked into the auction with Dr. Robinson so he could help us understand how the process worked. We had watched a few on our own earlier this summer in the smaller saleyards, but always just observed and it made it difficult to figure out how the process worked. As each animal comes out, they are "exercised" (for the lack of a better term) to show the viewers the animal's agility and health as it walks around the showcase pen. The auctioneer informs bidders of the age and weight of the animal and then there's usually a helper with the auctioneer to record all the information into a computer to record who bought which animal and for how much. Cattle are sold by the hundred weight. Usually, when 6 month, or so, calves are sold they go for about $70-80/cw. The bidding goes rather quickly and as the animals are bought, they are released from the showcase pen and sorted out back according to buyer. That day, there were many calves in the barn, as well as goats and hogs, which are sold before cattle, so we did not wait around for heifers and steers to be sold.

As we left, we were both complimented on how well we kept things moving in the barn and the workers were very appreciative of what we had done for them. Really, this was the first time all summer I felt really appreciated for the work we were there to do. NOT that Dr. Schwarck or any of them were ungrateful, but producers are always the ones that assume you can't do their job. So, we left the day with confidence, which was a really positive experience for me. Also, while we were taking off our boots, old Dwayne drove up to our car and gave us Northern Michigan Livestock hats that we had previously mentioned we liked. He was a sweet man and was also very appreciative of our help for the day. Ahhhh :O) Good day!

As a toast to our eventful day, Tara and I got changed and went to a state park in the Gaylord area. We hiked some nature trails, which was very relaxing. The trial was near an elk reserve so we had a chance to stop there and get a closer look at the elk as well. Definitely all worth our trip!