First BADGER VAC 45 Sale Held, Looking Toward Future

By Sarah Young Livestock Editor
Friday, December 5, 2008 3:30 PM CST

The first sale of Wisconsin’s preconditioned feeder calf program BADGER VAC 45 was held the day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 28 at the Equity sale barn in Sparta.

Sixteen different consignors sold 313 head to mainly Wisconsin buyers. The sale was conducted by the Western Wisconsin Beef Producers.

“Looking around at other sales, we matched or beat them on preconditioned calves,” says Jeff Swenson, DATCP livestock specialist.

“We had a good sale, I was pleased with it,” says Hope Laufenberg, president of Western Wisconsin Beef Producers, who also helped organize the sale.

Swenson reported the medium and large framed 500-600 pound steers sold between $95-$108, which is at or slightly above current market prices. The lighter muscled steers brought $85-$94, again meeting current market prices.

Good black-hided cattle brought the best demand, but red-hided cattle also did well, Swenson says.

“That’s kind of the industry trend where people are buying black-hided cattle,” he says. “Red-hided cattle sold well too, but there was definitely a premium for black calves.”

Being the dairy state, no beef sale would be complete without Holstein steer consignments. Sixty-nine Holstein steers sold at prices between $73-$78 for 500-pounders.

“It was a really interesting sale,” he says. “When you went into the back of the sale barn there was no bellaring. It was so quiet. That is one of the advantages of preconditioned calves n they’re ready to go to the feed lot.”

Laufenberg commends the sellers for providing high quality cattle, which she called one of the main goals for the first BADGER VAC 45 sale.

Overall, Swenson called the bidding “good”.

“I talked to consignors afterwards and they were satisfied,” he says. “We are happy with how it went.”

Another group, North Central Beef Producers are also looking into hosting a sale in the future as well.

“I think that the sale was successful. I really think we will have more preconditioned calves,” he says. “It will build a reputation for Wisconsin feeder calves.”

Creating the reputation is important to beef producers, but it will take time and more sales.

“We didn’t go in thinking this was a onetime thing,” says Laufenberg. “We were not expecting it to be a boom overnight.

Program requirements

BADGER VAC 45 was unveiled last year at the Wisconsin Cattlemen’s Association Winter Conference in February. The following are requirements for cattle enrolled in BADGER VAC 45:

- Cattle must be owned by the seller for at least 60 days, weaned a minimum of 45 days. Cattle must weigh a minimum weight of 400 pounds and the consignor must have a valid Wisconsin Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) certification number to participate.

- Vaccinations must be administered per BQA guidelines - utilizing subcutaneous products when possible, and administered according to product labels. All calves must be vaccinated and boostered against Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR), Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD), Parainfluenza III (PI 3, Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus (BRSV) and a 7-way clostridial. Products labeled as single dose immunization may require only one injection of product to provide adequate immunization. It is recommended that a modified live product be utilized when appropriate for respiratory viruses.

- Additional vaccinations are allowable and optional (i.e. Haemophilus somnus, Mycoplasma bovis, Mannhaemia haemolytica, Pasteurella multocida, Moraxella bovis).

- Cattle must be dehorned and healed. Male calves must be castrated and healed. Any method of castration for animal under four months of age is acceptable, but knife castration is strongly recommended. Animals over four months must be surgically castrated.

- All the above procedures must be completed at least 45 days before sale.

- Calves must be dewormed with a product that kills inhibited Ostertagia within 90 days of sale date, and treated for lice and grubs.

- All processing (vaccinations, deworming, other injections) must be recorded on a body map and charted on a processing sheet.

- Growth promoting implant products must be recorded with product name and date of administration.

- Calves must be trained to eat from a bunk and drink water from a trough, and be identified with a Wisconsin Premier Precondition Calf ear tag.

- Heifers are guaranteed open, and steers guaranteed not to be intact bulls or stags. Sellers must agree to pay $100 per head to the sale committee if any heifers are found to be pregnant and verified by a veterinarian within five months of sale date and proper documentation submitted to sale committee. The seller must also agree to pay $100 per head to sale committee if any bulls or stags are verified by a veterinarian within five months of sale date along with submission of proper documentation to sale committee.

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