Cattle Sale in Dickinson - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Cattle Sale in Dickinson

Lately there has been a lot semis pulling cattle trailers on the road.

Thousands of calves are moving from mom to market.

Ag Reporter Sarah Gustin takes you to Stockmen's Livestock Exchange in Dickinson for the a look at this fall's calf market.

Truck after truck the calves keeping coming in

while buyers are paying a hefty price in the stands to call these babies their own.

(Arvin VanEssen / Iowa Cattle Feeder) "Real expensive them calves are high. Have you ever seen calves this high? Nope never seen calves this high. These ranchers have got to be happy."

Barn owner Larry Schnell says a dry summer and little grass left this fall are sending more calves to market earlier than usual.

Schnell says large sale runs like today's of three thousand head or more typically wouldn't arrive for at least another 3 weeks.

(Larry Schnell / Stockmen's Livestock Exchange) "A lot of these guys are getting them off, but shortage of grass, shortage of hay, they need to get the calves gone, so they can take care of the cow better over the winter."

Arvin VanErns is a a cattle feeder from Iowa.

Everyday this week, he's been at a different North Dakota sale barn trying to fill loads for their Iowa feedlot.

(Arvin VanEssen / Iowa Cattle Feeder) "We've have got nothing yet, but right now we have started filling loads.

Schnell says 600 pound calves bringing $1.60 and 500 pound calves bringing $1.70 per pound is a good price and he doesn't expect it to soften anytime soon.

<<"I think the market today, is very similar to what we saw a year ago. I think we may even see a repletion of a year ago. In fact, the past several years when we first started selling calves in October, early November from that point on through the winter, it just got stronger and stronger and if we do get some moisture early this winter so there is some possibility of grass I think that could very well happen again this year."

Schnell says he expects a lot of people who would normally feed their calves till after the first of the year, to sell this fall because of the high prices and lack of feed in the area.