Selling surplus Rams and Bulls, with a little premium attached

Go to the Farm Tender website here.

By Dwain Duxson

On our Farm Tender marketplace, we have had success building a strong platform for Selling Farm stuff. Machinery, Hay, Grain, Trucks, Livestock Equipment, Vehicles, Farm Inputs, etc. But over the years, we have struggled to make the same impact for selling Livestock.

Why? Because our business model for Livestock wasn't right up until a couple of months ago. That's when we flipped the current model on its head and made it free for sellers to sell. We now have a buyer's fee, which is a fixed price per head. This has led to more listings and, in turn, more sales. See our fees here.

We have created a new category for this and called it "Zero Commission Livestock Selling".

But one area of the Livestock game we have had some success in is being a marketplace for selling surplus Rams and Bulls.

It's an interesting market this. The majority of studs across Australia sell their top of the drop at their on-property sales each year. This is not the market I am talking about here. It's the market for all the Rams and Bulls that don't make it to these sales. Every stud would have a number of extras to sell each year, this year especially with prices virtually halving from the peak.

And not everyone wants to pay the big bucks at Auction. Commercial Breeding is just that, commercial, it has to be profitable, and Rams and Bulls are one of the largest expense items. So getting what you want for the right price is essential for making a margin.

Along with that, some are buying big runs of Rams and Bulls and simply won't pay Auction prices.

And from the stud perspective, they have spent the same amount of money getting those lesser Rams and Bulls to market as they would have for the more expensive ones they sell. So, selling an extra 30 Bulls and $4000 say ($120k), or 60 Rams at $800 say ($48k), can add a significant amount to the bottom line. We all know what we would get for them at the saleyards.

Therefore we encourage any stud, or their Agents, to give themselves the opportunity to make some extra income. And the little premium is that there are no selling costs. It free.

To read more about Zero Commission Livestock Selling go here, here and here.