I spent the first part of last week evaluating bulls at PCC headquarters in Colorado. The weather wasn’t too bad; it even rained a little bit. The bulls looked good, and I got a good start on my sale research.
I’ll save the bulk of the research for later this fall. This is one of my favorite things to do, so I use it as leverage to get other projects completed. This has been a great motivator!
Bull workdays also gave me a chance to network with other PCC cooperators and customers. This is invaluable! I have talked about recharging your batteries and surrounding yourself with like-minded people. This was all of that and then some!
We spend as much time heckling each other as we do evaluating bulls. It’s a great teambuilding exercise (I think that’s what it’s called?). Even the potential customers that came to watch got a good laugh at all the sarcasm. Kit even let them evaluate some bulls at the end of the day. I think they were a little hesitant to say what they thought after hearing us give each other a hard time all day. We went easy on them and they got the hang of it pretty quick.
On a more serious note, we did provide some comments that I think will be helpful to potential buyers. If we noticed a great set of feet on a bull, we noted that the bull could be a foot improver. The same with rump slope. If we are going to help buyers fix structural problems in their cattle (i.e. poor feet, high tailheads), they need to know which bulls will help the most.
Evaluating bulls at the bull workdays has to be one of my favorite things to do. I enjoy the crew, the comradery, the food and giving people a hard time. Where else could you find this much fun!