Where can you sell calves?

The easiest and most common way to sell calves is through an auction. This can include general livestock auctions, feeder calf sales or purebred production sales.

Auctions are riskier because there is no set price. This means that the price the calves fetch may vary wildly depending on not only the market and time of year, but what the buyers at that auction are willing to spend and how many other calves are sold at that sale. A safer way to sell calves is to develop a relationship with a feedlot owner or other direct market and sell the calves with a predetermined price. Other ranchers butcher the calves themselves and sell the beef directly to consumers.