New facilities and a great turn out for the Foundation Female Sale made for a successful return to Denver.
“So we had an excellent sale, the Foundation Female Sale. It's sponsored by the Colorado Angus Association. It's a very long-standing sale with a lot of tradition,” says Levi Landers, regional manager for the American Angus Association. “We had 30 consignors participate, and we sold cattle to 38 states online and in the seats.”
Landers spoke with Brett Spader, president of Angus Media at the conclusion of the National Western Stock Show (NWSS) hosted in Denver, Colo.
In addition to discussing the results of the Foundation Female Sale, the pair spoke about the new facilities in Denver and how the tradition of the NWSS will continue for years to come.
To hear more from Spader and Landers, listen in to their conversation or read the full interview below.
BRETT SPADER: Welcome everyone. This is Brett Spader with Angus Media. I'm very glad to have Levi Landers here on this audio interview today. Levi's going to give us a recap of the National Western Stock Show, which happened last week. Turned out to be a great Angus event for buyers and sellers of Angus genetics. Levi, welcome.
LEVI LANDERS: Thanks, Brett, for having me. Just finished up with National Western Stock Show, and eager to tell y'all about it.
SPADER: Perfect. Well, of course, many in the industry know, the National Western has been a long-time epicenter of livestock market discovery, and in creating connections between buyers and sellers and the beef industry, both U.S.-based, as well as international. Tell us a little bit about what you saw last week, Levi, as we saw that great event come back to life after a year off.
LANDERS: Yeah, so the tradition continues with the 116th Annual National Western Stock Show for the first three weeks of January. And between the rodeos, the trade show, the cattle shows, merging commercial cattlemen with exhibitors, was second to none this year. The new yard center is state of the art. Lots of great things are going to happen, and it'll just continue to grow as we move forward.
Construction is moving along. They'll have a new building in 2024 to accommodate — What they're calling it is the “new hill.” And we're hoping to have that completed in 2024. Lots of good things as far as parking will continue. They're building a multi-story parking garage that will accommodate dualie pickups, and I can see the yards exhibitors to increase their participation as we move forward.
SPADER: Where will that new hill building be, so to speak?
LANDERS: So, to put perspective on everything, the exchange building is a historical building. It'll be across the alley to the east of it, and it'll go the full length of the old yards all the way across the alley, so to speak, of where the new yard center is. It'll all be not one building, but it'll all be really close to each other.
SPADER: So right there between the new yards and the exchange building?
LANDERS: Yep.
SPADER: Very good. Of course, we had a great Angus sale there last week as well. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about the tone of the buyers there, the participation that we saw there?
LANDERS: Yeah. So, we had an excellent sale, the Foundation Female Sale. It's sponsored by the Colorado Angus Association. It's a very long standing sale with a lot of tradition. We had 30 consignors participate, and we sold cattle to 38 states online and in the seats.
Couple of the highlights where, we only had one bull, but he brought $12,000 and a local cattle producer bought him. Another highlight was, the top open heifer brought $19,500 by a first-time consignor, and the 117 embryos topped out at $2,000 for a high. Four flushes averaged $18,500. Nine pregnancies did $9,700. And the highlight of that was the pregnancy donated to the Angus Foundation by Woodhill Farms brings $20,000, with Belle Point Ranch purchasing that, with all proceeds benefiting the Angus Foundation.
SPADER: Oh, that's great news. Great to hear you had a great Angus event there. As we look forward to the future, what happens next for the National Western Stock Show as it pertains to Angus participants?
LANDERS: I think as we looked forward, the participation in the pen show was big, roughly 20 pens shown, and we had a nice crowd to fill the bleachers. We had lots of traffic walking through the yards, several bulls sold private treaty during the week. And I think, as we work out a few kinks as far as the show goes, to make it better for exhibitors, exhibitors have plenty of room out in the yards. Highlight for me was not having to talk over generators, as every pen has plenty of electricity to accommodate everything they need. The wash racks all have hot and cold water, and it's just very accommodating for yard participators.
SPADER: And do you see this event continue to evolve in that direction, particularly focusing on those yard participations as well, being very industry-focused?
LANDERS: I think it's very industry focused. Like I said, it's 116 years of being a tradition to go to the stock show, go to the rodeo. It's a vacation destination for a lot of people in the area. And as we continue to grow the yards, I think we'll get more and more traffic down there. Yeah. I think we'll just continue to grow that aspect of it.
SPADER: Very good. Well, thank you Levi, for joining us this morning, and thank you for the recap of the National Western Stock Show. As always, you can find more information about the sale report from this sale at the sale reports page on angus.org, as well as more information about upcoming Angus events on that website as well. Thanks for joining, Levi.