America’s Land Auctioneer
Captivate and celebrate the dynamics of rural America, American Agriculture and inspire and teach others how to live a bold and abundant life in rural America. Background: The intrigue, endless opportunities, and romance of rural life in America have never been more on the minds of Americans. The recent pandemic and civil unrest have Americans of all ages earning for a more peaceful, less hectic life. Even billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest crop landowner in America. As many Americans look for peaceful refuge in the rolling hills and wheat fields they are faced with a richness of opportunities. But where do you begin to look? This show will highlight and feature endless opportunities in every state. What is it that is so unique about rural America, the land and what it produces? How can I live that life? The American Land Auctioneer will tell stories and weave into those stories a place for you to dream, live and enjoy the abundance of all that rural America has to offer.
America’s Land Auctioneer
Navigating Wildlife Management, Cattle Market Trends, and Land Management Strategies in North Dakota's Badlands
Scott Bachmeier, host of Dakota Prairie Outdoors, joins us to unravel the complexities of wildlife management amidst the rugged beauty of North Dakota’s Badlands. Our conversation kicks off with a deep dive into how EHD is shaping the future of deer populations, with whitetail and mule deer navigating the slow road to recovery. Scott doesn't shy away from addressing the rise of coyotes, dissecting how market and environmental shifts are impacting hunters and investors alike. His expertise paints a vivid picture of the challenges and opportunities facing wildlife enthusiasts and landowners in this ever-changing landscape.
We then steer our discussion towards the vital crossroads of wildlife management and agriculture. The cattle industry is riding a wave not seen since the early 2010s, and we're unpacking what this boom means for ranchers eager to expand their horizons. It's a balancing act between seizing growth opportunities and exercising caution in a market that demands strategic foresight. With echoes of 1962's low cattle numbers and high prices, the conversation underscores the necessity of planning for both the runaway successes and the inevitable downturns that define this cyclical field.
As our chat rounds out, we spotlight the transformative power of professional land management, particularly for baby boomers on the cusp of retirement. We draw compelling parallels between managing real estate and financial assets, emphasizing the potential to unlock greater returns through savvy management. The episode culminates in an exploration of the buoyant Angus and Red Angus bull sales, celebrating the resilience of ranchers and the ongoing surge in cattle popularity. From proven genetics to the intricacies of purebred ventures, there's plenty for budding producers to consider as they carve their path in the cattle industry.
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Contact the team at Pifer's
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm your host this fine Saturday morning Andy Murdoch, manager of Piper's Auctioneers and Auction Realty and Land Management here in the western side of the state in Bowman, our regional office right here in Bowman, here on the western side of the state in Bowman, our regional office right here in Bowman. That's where we're broadcasting here from this morning and it is a great pleasure for me to introduce one of my great friends in this world and colleague and side partner and travel partner and all the things that we get a chance to do together here, scott. But I want to welcome Mr Scott Bachmeier.
Speaker 2:He's the host of Dakota Prairie Outdoors. You're going to listen to his radio show immediately following this one right here on K-Fire 550. He's also director for Consolidated Telecom in the western side of North Dakota. He really specializes in telecommunications and internet broadcast and everything that happens across the world and how we network with each other. He's a Slope County rancher first and foremost and of course he is a freelance ringman, does a lot of work with the auctions and of course he's a land and equipment auctioneer right here with Piper's Auction Realty and Land Management, been a tremendous, tremendous asset to our team and a great guest here for this morning. I think we've got a lot to talk about. And of course I don't want to forget he is the husband of Dr Dixie Bachmeier.
Speaker 2:It's probably the most important part right there, absolutely, absolutely. So quite the introduction, I guess I want to make sure that everybody knew that you're a credible guest here this morning and we got a lot to talk about, so welcome, welcome, scott.
Speaker 3:Good morning. I appreciate you having me on the show, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, scott, as always he broadcasts from his home studio up in the badlands between Rame and Amidon and Medora, north dakota, so it kind of tucked in the tucked in the heart of the world. And, as as the host of dakota prairie outdoors, scott, you've always got a pulse and a beat on what's happening on wildlife and I'd like to give kind of our our, our listeners, an idea of what we're seeing here on the western side of the state, uh, and maybe across the region, as, as you're I'm sure you're up to date with uh is what populations are doing across the region, as I'm sure you're up to date with is what populations are doing across the region. But in the land business there's a lot to do with the management of wildlife and what expectations are for our investors and for our hunters. But you know it's been kind of a mild winter. What are you seeing you?
Speaker 3:know the western side of the state, you know, especially in my area in the northern part of Slope County. I can't say this for everybody because there are some good pockets of deer depending on where you go. But for the last few years the EHD of course we had that what four and a half years ago wiped out pretty much everything on the Little Missouri River. As whitetail deer go they're starting to come back little by little but it made the mule deer very sick and then of course we had a very tough winter after that for those mule deer and the numbers dropped dramatically. So in the area in the western side of the state I'd say that the deer numbers have definitely dropped, both whitetail and mule deer.
Speaker 3:Now if you get down in that south central part of the state, that 3F2 area, a lot of people say there's a lot less deer that. But you go to Scranton, scranton Reader, some of those herds look to be a little bit better. And talking at some of the bull sales I've been at, it's just kind of a checkered board of what you're seeing. Numbers in deer Elk look good. The coyotes this year the most coyotes you've probably seen ever, with the lowest prices you've ever seen ever, so that isn't helping on the coyote and predator side of things.
Speaker 2:We were out hunting here just a couple of weeks ago, south of Carson, and typically I always look for a beautiful fur coat when it gets to be sub-zero 20 inches of snow on the ground and the dogs are running through whites are trying to blend in their environment, but you're seeing a lot of heavy fur coats on the coyotes when it was 50, 60, 70 degrees outside still this fall. Is there a correlation there, Because I always believed that it was a winter preparation and this year just didn't seem like it was.
Speaker 3:Well, you see, it depends on who you talk to.
Speaker 3:If you talk to the guys that have been at coyote hunting and trapping for years and years and years, they say the best coats on these coyotes are coming out, like the end of October to the middle of December, and after that, it doesn't matter what the temperature is, they're going to start shedding and starting working that under hair out, because right now they're in the middle of breeding and kind of getting that wrapped up right now. So I mean, their mind isn't off of that fur coat, their mind is on well, something different right now, right, and so, right after that December area, I say you're not going to see the coats of these coyotes get any better or look any better. I haven't seen any manes yet, but I have seen some of these coyotes with just a really neat butterscotch look to them, which I like, that lighter silver look to them. But these butterscotch looking coyotesotes, I think I'm going to start saving a few of them. I'm maybe, uh, save a few of those hides for hopefully the prices come up down the road absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think you're starting to see a lot more, uh, evening and nighttime hunting with the coyotes as well.
Speaker 3:A lot of predator hunting happening in the evenings you see a lot of guys that are switching from nighttime hunting to just daytime only because there's so many guys out there at night hunting right now and a big, that's huge thing, I mean as a rancher, uh, having the opportunity to use thermal imaging to go out and protect your herd. There's a lot of people calving right now I'm sure you guys at your operation are, and a lot most of the bull producing guys. They're heavy into it right now. I think, uh, we know a guy, chad erickson, out of Amadon. He's done, he started, he's all wrapped up calving already. So, when it comes to the thermal imaging, it's really neat to see that opportunity, but you can educate a coyote at night, during the day, it doesn't matter what time of the day it is. They're smart dogs. When you, if you miss, they know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, like you were talking about, I think we're starting to hear of quite a few influence with elk and moose around the western side of the state too. So, like you said earlier, the population of elk seems to be as strong as probably you've seen in a long time.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You know they just keep growing and growing, they keep spreading and spreading. I see you know the amount of cows that you see, these elk herds. I mean we're talking 60 to 80 cows in a bunch, especially this winter when they're bunched up for the winter. Uh, even talking to the official wildlife service um, the guy that snares coyotes on my property he said the same thing. He's starting to see elk way more than deer in this country, and the elk are spreaded from medora all the way down into the cave hills of South Dakota. Now almost every single rancher will have a chance of seeing one.
Speaker 2:You have first-time knowledge of this. You guys have got quite a residential herd of elk on the property that you live and work on on a daily basis. Is there anything that you guys do to try to manage that herd? Is there anything that you do to try to keep them on the property? Is it a good thing to try it for landowners to try to keep them? Are they trying to mitigate them? What's the rancher mentality of being able to cohabitate your livestock and ranch with wildlife?
Speaker 3:So I'm going to give you my take on it because I'm not sure if there's there's not much management with that big of game animal unless you go to the extreme of putting a lot of supplemental feed out. I mean, they just cover so much ground they can jump like crazy and or they just go through the fences. But so like at my place. The only thing I recognize is I go through a lot of mineral where I winter my cows, at that's where the majority of mineral, where I winter my cows at that's where the majority of the cow herd winter as well for the elk, and I go through a lot of mineral, extra mineral, in the tubs. When it comes to rolling out round bales or anything, if it's grain hay, absolutely they love that stuff, they'll come in. I don't have much alfalfa so we don't have that worry.
Speaker 3:As for managing them, it depends on the rancher.
Speaker 3:If the rancher is doing access fee, if they're doing outfitting, I can absolutely see them trying to keep them on there a little bit more and that's going to come down to just managing your cattle herd and your grass and your pastures.
Speaker 3:If there's grass and there's cover for these elk, they love it. You know, we're fortunate to have canyons and cedar trees and pine trees, and that's definitely going to help it. But they're out on top of the hay fields, they're out on the flats, they're in cornfields if you have cornfields or any of that. But they're such a large animal and they move so many miles within a day, especially if you spook them, you better have a king-size ranch if you're going to try to say they're going to stay on my property, because I think they'll just jump the fence or go through the fence and continue on. They'll come back in a few, you know. You know seven to ten days they'll come back and make their way back around, but I just don't know if there's a as good a management as there is. On the deer side of things, sure.
Speaker 2:I think, just you know, think of all the ranches that, um, you know I've either been on or worked on in, the in the western side of north dakota, and what jim sabby and I have sold, uh, throughout western north dakota with the. You know the southern cross ranch, or a couple of ranches up and down the east river road. You know south of madora, um, some properties that you'll find north of north of sentinel butte any time that you can advertise or market. You know large game hunting elk. You know elk residential herd, elk gratis tag. You know if, if it's if, it qualifies for an elk gratis tag, not every property in Western North Dakota does he? Just because you have an elk on the property does not mean you qualify for a gratis tag.
Speaker 3:First and foremost, everybody is on the same page there but and you have to remember that the gratis is a still a lottery. There are some people that may get it every year but for, like in this area, we, the landowners, are thrown into a lottery. You might get drawn maybe once every five to 10 years. You might get drawn back to back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt. But having access to this type of this type of wildlife habitat on the ranch or on your ranch certainly adds value. So there we had a gentleman from Wyoming one year. He says, first and foremost, he says you're a landowner, but he said secondly, he said you are a wildlife manager. He says, because if you're not managing the wildlife on your ranch or on your property, he said you will lose value each and every year. And I've always, I've always kind of listened to that. And whether it's managing the you know the pheasant population around Scranton or managing the you know the deer population here, you know anywhere, I guess, throughout, throughout North Dakota, because they're they're pretty much a universal wildlife. And then if you got access to the elk on your property or neighboring properties, being able to manage those herds certainly adds a lot of value to your operation.
Speaker 3:Absolutely it does. You know. And the biggest thing there is, somebody told me a long time ago they said what are you in the business of? And I says are you in the business of raising cattle or raising grass? And if you are in the business of raising grass, your byproduct is cattle, wildlife and everything that goes along with it. And the drought last year definitely set us back a little bit, I think a little bit on the wildlife. But you know, with the open winter hopefully that'll come through pretty nice for next spring. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, Scott, I certainly want to thank you for being part of America's Land Auction here this Saturday morning For all of us listening. We want to certainly thank our sponsors. Each and every week, that's Pfeiffer's Auction, Realty and Land Management. We've got dozens of land auctions and equipment auctions throughout the upper Midwest. You can always find all of our upcoming auctions at pfeifferscom. We are rolling out a brand new website here this week, so you're going to have an opportunity to see all of the new technology that Pfeiffer's is integrating into their auctions here for 2025 and beyond. We've got lots of great sales coming up. Probably, Scott, I would say that there's more auctions booked in 2025 at this point than any other year in history, and they seem to keep compounding every day. The land auction season is certainly upon us and I think we're seeing as good a results as we could ever expect. If you're interested in any of our upcoming land or equipment auctions, log on to Piperscom. We'll be back with Scott Bachmeier right after this welcome back to america's land auction here.
Speaker 2:Saturday morning, february 1st, I'm your host andy murnock sitting side by side or, I guess, across the county, across the county. I'm in my studio, scott's in his studio here this morning, uh, in bowman and slope county. But we're sitting here with scott bachmeyer again and we just kind of talked about uh in the first segment. A little bit about, uh, managing wildlife, managing grass, making sure that, uh, that that your your land that you're buying, or land that you're investing in, or the land that you're owning, uh, that you can utilize. Number one the recreational aspect of it. You want to have the ability to enjoy that property, want you want to have the ability to bring your friends out there and be sportsmen and enjoy that property if you're not solely running on it for agricultural purposes, or if you're not, you know, maybe you're leasing the property out and you want to look for some extra added value and there's a lot of added value here in western North Dakota, throughout the upper Midwest region. And, of course, managing the wildlife that you see. It's been kind of an open winter, so there's been a lot of good expectations coming into the populations for pheasants, upland birds and elk, like Mr Scott was talking about here earlier as well, but a lot of great things happening as far as trying to cohabitate the wildlife with agriculture and what you can do to improve the value of your property as you do that. As we've been talking on the side, I guess Scott Bachmeier does a lot of freelance ringman work through a lot of different bull sales.
Speaker 2:Of course, both of you both you and I are heavily involved in livestock industry here in Western North Dakota and certainly you know it's probably as fun of an industry to be part of this year as it ever has been in any point in history. I believe we're in the third year of at least a five or six year stretch. I think we've got a lot, of, a lot of great positive things happening. You know. So if you're currently in the in the livestock industry or you're currently in the cattle industry, it's great to be part of.
Speaker 2:You may want to be a little hesitant if you're just thinking about getting into it right. Always, I mean, you never want to buy into anything when it's at the highest point, and we're certainly at the highest point in history here watching a lot of calves sell this time of year. There's a lot of weaned calves coming off the operations, maybe back around for 30 days or so, but they're hitting the market 700, 750 pounds, seeing a lot of $3, 310, 320 steers. I saw some people out the door 750 weights the other day at three and a quarter. So this market is it's wild.
Speaker 3:And it's exciting, isn't it? I mean, think about all the times you and I've been driving across North and South Dakota, different auctions, and we're listening to the radio and we hear a livestock market report. We were always kind of breaking them apart and saying, well, they should do this and this and this. Now we're listening to every single weight and price on these things and everybody is. It's definitely a good time. I mean, the input costs have definitely been higher than they. You know, it kind of follows along with that, but it is an exciting time to be in it. And you know, I think it's an exciting time no matter when. You know, as a cattle producer, as a farmer out there, I mean this is what we do, we enjoy it. We wake up every day and enjoy what we do, and so I think it's an exciting time all the time. But it's just kind of nice to see a little higher value on what you put so much of your time and value into every day of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and this is the first time we've seen, you know, a really strong market 2013, 2014,. Going into that market timeframe was always good too right, but what you and I always talk about, and what a lot of ranchers will always refer back to, is, two years out of 10 does not mean that you're the most profitable business running, exactly. Yeah, you know so. So when the market was really strong last year it wasn't maybe not this strong, but it was very strong last year tremendous market last year for the livestock industry, especially the cattle side, that was kind of a recovery year. I mean, that was the, that was the year. That. That that okay, the.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe our, maybe our operating note got caught up with a little bit, or, from the drought two years prior to that, the amount of hay that we had to buy. Whatever the case may be, we're always trying to recover and recoup the expenses from the previous two or three or four years, and it always seems like there's two good years out of a decade. So you really have to plan accordingly. So you really have to plan accordingly Now that we're looking at maybe the third year in a row. Now we're starting to get a little comfort level. Or you're starting to see ranchers with a little more comfort on their bull buying power, on their equipment buying power, potentially on their land buying power, and now you're starting to see some guys really inquiring about leasing some extra grassland across the community. So if you're a landowner and you have some grass available, I think it's pretty easy to say that we're going to be able to find you a tenant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know they talk about these are the lowest cattle numbers we had since 1962. They keep bringing that up over and over about why the value of the beef is so high. But if you want to go out and buy cattle, there's plenty of cattle to go find and buy, whether you're looking at replacement heifers or bred heifers, or even there's even some people that are looking and taking advantage of this market right now and saying it's time to retire, andy, it's time to get rid of all my cows and just liquidate it, and so there's always a chance of being able to find them. You are going to pay a little bit more this year to purchase those but, like you said, hopefully we can hold it out for another couple of years and make those values come back.
Speaker 2:Well, it's very, very rare that if you're in the, if you're in the retirement mode or even in three to five years, away from thinking about retiring, when would you ever have a chance to retire at the high right now? It's probably the time you've got. You've got this year, maybe part of next year. You know there's there's no, no, no crystal ball in front of us to say when the next media video is going to come out and just kind of entank this market back a little bit. But I do think the cattle, the numbers, like you said, the supply is what's, is what's keeping this market, you know, as stable as it is and keeping the keeping the push behind it.
Speaker 2:I talked to a really good friend of ours and he he's a rancher and a feeder and purebred producer down in South Dakota and he was at our bull sale here this last week and what he told he was in Brazil last a month, a month and a half ago, and what he said is a 9 million acres of land have been taken out of production in Brazil for grass, so they've been taking grass out and so they can plant it to crops. Brazil, one of our largest competitors in the beef industry as far as exports across the world, jbs, and they closed 11 plants. And now, if you just kind of rough calculations generally, your slaughter plants will do 2,500, 3,000, 3,500 head per day. Yeah, if you knock 11 plants out, that's 30,000 less cattle being killed in Brazil daily, daily, than there was in 2023. And so those numbers just being staggering enough by themselves leads me to believe that I think we've still got a few strong years, you know, left ahead of us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it does. You know. I think two plants closed up in the United States over the last year, I believe you know. So I mean it's affecting us here too a little bit. And prices if there's not enough cattle to bring in on the feeds, I guess you've got to do something with your plant. You can't just make up cattle right away. But hopefully we see these prices. Andy, I guess we get a lot of pushback. Potentially Mexico might be importing some beef again. We see that might be altering the value of what we might see at the store hamburger-wise and on the lower cuts, like that, but we'll see this administration only a couple weeks into it. We might see at the store hamburger-wise and on the lower cuts, like that, but we'll see this administration only a couple weeks into it. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt. I think there's a lot of support for the livestock industry and that's what we're talking about. So if you are on the retirement side like we were kind of leading into that last conversation if you're on the retirement side, why not take a look at the opportunities that are in front of you today? You know, contact somebody here at Piper's Auction and say, hey, we're looking at maybe selling our cows. We will, you know, try to get you hooked up with one of the best markets there. You know, depending on your location, hey, maybe you want to look at splitting up some income this year. We can lease some grass out.
Speaker 2:You could go ahead and offer your equipment for sale because equipment depreciates over time. There, equipment for sale because equipment depreciates over time, there's always. We always get the general person to come and say, well, I might not want to sell my equipment this year because I just don't want to take any extra income. Well, you might want to forfeit the idea of paying a little more taxes because your depreciation, especially now, could actually be higher than what your tax burden would be. So, always want to weigh out those options. Contact a specialist here at Pfeiffer's and we'll walk you through that process but on the backside of it, when are you going to have an opportunity to sell your entire cow herd for probably $2,500 to $3,000 across the board? We saw some bred heifers the other day knock off the auction block at $4,200 a head. That's a lot of money for a bred cow.
Speaker 3:Absolutely bred cow, absolutely, like you said. Even the old cows, you know, short termers, or even smooth mouse cows, broken mouse, you're looking at twenty five to twenty, eight hundred on somebody's that you, I mean, you get five, six hundred dollars a few years back, you know, and it's pretty impressive to see the numbers. But also, like you said, if you're trying to get into the ranching side and taking over, or maybe looking at leasing some land and filling those acres up, that could be a little scary with the numbers, the way they are trying to buy into it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We're going to continue this conversation after the break. Here Again Andy Murdock, your host for America's Land Auction, here this morning, broadcasting live right here out of the Bowman Regional Office in Bowman, north Dakota. We specialize in land auctions, equipment auctions, land management all throughout the region. If you have any questions about any one of our dozens of upcoming land and equipment sales throughout the Upper Midwest or if you want to contact Dwight for your land management, give Murnauch Piper's Auction Realty and Land Management based right here out of the Bowman Regional Office for Piper Pipers and where we handle all of your land and equipment needs. And of course we always work on land management here as well. So got a tremendous land management department throughout our company headed up by Dwight Hoffman Scott I think. He's managing about 230,000 acres now throughout the upper Midwest so they keep plenty of busy just right there in their in their now they've got their own office now, so that's how big that department's getting.
Speaker 3:So a nice thing about that, andy, is if you live in an area where you're close neighbors with everybody and you want to shift into that retirement side, but maybe rent it out first before you sell everything, and and you don't want to be the guy that has to deal with everything, you don't want to have to guy that has to deal with everything, you don't have to deal with all your neighbors. Let you guys take care of that, let you field all the questions and don't you know you say, well, if you have an issue, go to andy, yeah of course you know, in a I don't want to defer to dwight.
Speaker 2:I wish he was part of this conversation. Sure, um makes a lot easier to just you force him to answer those questions, yeah, but, but you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:So what you know, what my take and my philosophy on the land management side always is and and we're getting into you know we're we got a lot of baby boomers that own that own property and, uh, real estate up here in the upper Midwest, north and South Dakota. And my advice always is if you had $3 million of assets in the stock market, do you have a stockbroker or a wealth management company handling those funds for you and do you expect to get the greatest return possible from that brokerage account? The answer generally is yes. And so why would it be any different for real estate? You know, for specifically agricultural real estate, if you owned an apartment building and you could get 500, you know 10% more or 15% more return on your investment or income or return on your assets, then you would take it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot more sentimental feeling towards agricultural land. You know everybody's got specific ties to it. Maybe it's a relative that leases it, or maybe a relative that wants to lease it, and for those purposes alone it actually makes it a lot easier to have a land manager involved in that process as well, it takes all of the feeling out of it.
Speaker 2:And you don't have to be you as a landowner, Scott, you don't have to be the bad guy saying, well, I'd sure like to see my rent increase by 10% this year.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, exactly. And we just had that conversation too about. You know, cattle prices are up a little bit. You don't want to take advantage of anybody just because of the cattle prices, unless you are willing to drop it when the prices go down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were talking off air about an instance and I won't get into the specifics or who it is. But we deal with a lot of landowners throughout the region each and every day and just a few days ago I had one call a gentleman who I respect wholeheartedly in this business owns quite a bit of land in western North Dakota. He said, well, now that cattle prices are higher, he says maybe I should adjust the lease rates up and, like you and I talked about, this market can fluctuate and is so variable from day to day that you can actually see this market drop by 30 or 40% in a 12-month period. This will happen. We know this is going to happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not. If it's when.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you want to adjust your lease rates based on today's market, which is the all time high in the history of of the open market of raising livestock raising cattle, then again, like you and I talked about, maybe we should be able to have the ability to adjust it down if the cattle market corrects. Or what I've seen in a lot of times is having a base rate or a base lease rate and in these extreme years up, then maybe there's a bonus for a landowner. There's lots of ways to, there's a customize and design. And of course I don't want to get into the uh in, into into Dwight's business by any means. He certainly does a great job handling all of the uh, the the cattle contracts that are out there in the, in the ranching contracts that are out there. And you know just, there's always an expert that may have the ability to to provide you some extra insight or provide you some extra details If you have any questions. And actually, what if you're? If you're in the Bismarck area, I think, on the correct me if I'm wrong. If you're in the Bismarck area, I think on the correct me if I'm wrong, scott.
Speaker 2:But K-Fire Egg Expo is Tuesday and Wednesday of the 11th and 12th correct, okay, 11th and 12th. So I believe and I'll get that I don't have my calendar in front of me for this but we will be. Pifers will be giving a seminar at that show on both the 11th and the 12th I believe we're at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the 11th and 11 o'clock on the 12th, and then we also have a live or actually an auction, and online only auction 1900 acres in Grant and Sioux County, south Dakota or North Dakota, south of uh, south of Carson and that part of the world. There's 1900 acres going to sell and we're going to close that auction right there at the K-Fire Ag Expo Agri-International yeah, agri-international Expo right there at the Civic Center.
Speaker 3:That's a good way to do it, so people can actually see there live in person. You're going to have big screens and the whole works like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll have a big screen up and allow everybody to see what's going on and kind of you know how we manage some sales on the backside and hopefully we watch a lot of exciting bidding coming in. It's a really nice property scattered out throughout those two counties. I think it should generate some interest for quite a few different buyer demographics.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and it's a great country and great people in that area too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not to get off the cattle topic there for a little bit, but that is kind of what we've been talking about or what we've looked and what we're seeing for how leases may be being approached. I think the conversation is definitely out there as to where are these lease rates going to go in the next three to five years rates going to go in the next three to five years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's going to be exciting to see where it ends up. But you know one thing that you mentioned. You said when the cattle market corrects itself, where's it going to correct itself to? Is it going to correct itself at an all time low for the last 10 years, or is it going to be somewhat still manageable? And is the rest of the input costs going to correct themselves as well to go along with that? That's the big scare right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without it and that's always the unknown, and I think you know history should have it. We saw it in 2014, that you know the first time we saw $3,500 or $3,700, in some cases $4,000 bread heifers. There certainly was a lot of buyers out there. But then in 2016, when we're seeing a lot of $1,400 and $1,500 bread heifers, there's a whole different attitude in the atmosphere and I don't believe that in today's market now we have natural inflation that is kind of, I think, it's going to prop the bottom side of this market up as much as possible. We have a pretty steady demand which I believe is going to prop this market up as much as possible for a few years. There's obviously always competitive markets. There's always competitive products out there, especially in the beef industry.
Speaker 2:It's pretty easy for a consumer to go and see a ribeye at $27 a pound, or they can see a pork loin at $3.50 a pound. What's the best way to feed your family this week? Well, it's in the eye of the beholder. Beef is always a luxury item. It's always been a luxury item and I believe it'll continue to be a luxury item. So I don't see where the demand is going to ever disappear because of value. But in the whole grand scheme of things Americans on average consume about 52 to 54 pounds of beef annually per year. So if beef goes up by $10 a pound, your annual cost really only goes up by $500.
Speaker 3:That's true If you look at it like that on a yearly basis. I never broke the numbers down like that before.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have as big of an impact economically as one would think. You are impacted more by a 5% increase in gas than you are on a $10 increase in beef. So it's just food for thought and something that there's always these type of conversations that always happen behind the scenes in what we're talking about. So there's a lot of great things about the beef industry. That's why I believe these markets are going. They're here to stay for a while and I don't believe we're going to see them ever go back down to and I'm just going to base it off what we talked about earlier at the bread heifer market. We're not going to see 1200 bread heifers. No, I don't think that. I think that I think that's behind us. I I think that's kind of like saying, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait for the opportunity to go buy 350 land to run my cows if you see a bread heifer, I would recommend not buying that one I'm talking about a general overall curve of the market.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're exactly right, there's always the outliers. There's going to be the individuals that will certainly do it, but I think that that's probably the direction that we're going to see this market at least be able to be propped up for quite a while. So you know we're deep in bull sale season Bull sale season.
Speaker 2:It is definitely upon us and the bull sales across the countryside. I know for a fact that November and December are always nervous times for the bull producers and trying to get your marketing out there and trying to get the word out that what your program is and what you're trying to accomplish and what you're trying Now in January you really start to see what the bull buyers are actually looking at, what they're having to try to spend to get the genetics that they're looking for for this upcoming season. And now that we've got kind of January behind us we're seeing a lot more trends. There's been some tremendous, tremendous sales around the region, around the countryside and I think the strength is here for the next upcoming months. Scott, you were down in South Dakota at a really nice sale there outside of Union Center, south Dakota and for rounds Angus really strong sale, probably one of the premier sales that I've watched thus far this year. Obviously, van Newkirk's down in Nebraska had a tremendous sale. We were watching Mark Wolfe and 21 Angus there outside of New England 170 bulls I don't have his average in front of me but it was dang near into the five-ditch. What a tremendous, tremendous sale he had and well-deserving, some of the best genetics across the countryside you can find right there in New England. The same day Thompson Angus over at Kintyre, north Dakota, really had a substantial sale in today's market and really kind of set in the pace. Later today, scott, we're going to find Ellingson Angus sale right there. Yep, julie and Chad Ellingson, south of or down by St Snantney, north Dakota, snantney, north Dakota, and you know obviously he's going to be one of the premier sails in the Upper Midwest. They always have a good following there.
Speaker 2:Fry Angus Ranch up north is on February 2nd, pelton Poldherford's coming up. On the 3rd Tweet, red Angus sale and Beggar Diamond V happening on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Bill Beggar always has a great sale over there by Weeble Wrestler Angus Ranch is on the 6th, the Stroherford Ranch. Lots of great sales coming up. That's the end of this segment here, scott. We've got one more. Stick around here for more with Scott Bachmeier and America's Land Auctioneer. I'm your host, andy Murdoch. Join any one of us at Piper's upcoming lander equipment auctions throughout the Upper Midwest. You can find them all at piperscom. We'll be right back after this. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1:We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back, we'll be right.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to america's land auctioneer for the fourth and final segment here this saturday morning, february 1st. It's a beautiful day here in western north dakota, again sitting here, again not in studio, but we're in our each own respective studios. Andy murnock with scott bockmeyer. Scott bockmeier, dakota Prairie Outdoors. Stick around after this broadcast for his live Saturday morning show on KFIRE 550. I think you can also watch him on his YouTube channel as well. So thanks for sticking around for the entire show here this morning, scott.
Speaker 2:We've had a lot of great conversations here so far about the cattle industry, the positive impacts that it's having on real estate, positive impacts that we're seeing with the cattle industry, the positive impacts that it's having on real estate, positive impacts that we're seeing with the cattle markets and, of course, the rebound for the ranchers, and a well-deserved rebound. You know there's been a lot of great, great years for the farmers that have, you know, capitalized on some tremendous markets and some government programs throughout the past eight or 10 years, and the ranchers always seem to be kind of left in the dust when it comes to a lot of that stuff. Eight or 10 years, and the ranchers always seem to be kind of left in the dust when it comes to a lot of that stuff. And so now we're starting to see that rebound, that little bit of a flip, that a little bit of a relaxation I guess you would, if you will, as far as maybe letting the banker take a little pressure off, and especially with some higher interest rates.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it is definitely nice to have a little bit of break and see that it's fun to go to a sale barn and see most everybody with a smile on their face. It really is nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were kind of highlighting some of the upcoming week's equipment auction or sorry, bull sales that are happening across the region. You can always go to North Dakota Stockman's Association check out their calendar for any upcoming North Dakota or surrounding area bull sales. They're mainly those who advertise there. Lots of other great publications always have bull sale calendars and I would suggest you know contact the guys. If you've never purchased a bull from you know any individual breeder, contact that breeder, find out what their program is, find out what they're doing on a daily basis, see where they're getting their genetics, see what they're focused on when they're selecting genetics for their program and see if it matches with your marketing program and your genetic program and how it's going to impact you on a daily basis and because it's the seed stock producer's responsibility to produce that strain for you, if that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 3:So let me ask you a question, andy. Your family's been at this for over 50 years. I've personally seen this over the last 15 years more and more people getting into the bull production side of things. Why is that, and is that true or not? Or has they been there all the time, or have you seen an increase in these guys that are having bull sales now?
Speaker 2:I think it's pretty safe to say that there's an increase in the amount of bull sales that you see across the area. Why is that? Well, why would you want to get into the cattle business when cattle are at $4,000 a head? Right, I mean, it's the promise of optimization of the future and I think that, or optimism, but I think the you know the overall aspect of from the outside, looking in, it looks like it's easy.
Speaker 2:The purebred side of the of the business is far from it. Right, it kind of like the auction side. Right, auction day, the just kind of like the like the pure purebred you know, sale, your your sale day. Or in our business, the auction day looks easy but it takes years of of of backbuilding, especially in the cattle business. Cause it, you know your road. You really can only rotate genetics every two years. Right, you know, it's not the, it's not the pork industry. Where you're, you're, you can have a new spawn every three months, three weeks, three days, right, we're. We're looking at the cattle deal where you've got nine months gestation. You've got, you know, years of procuring those genetics and trying to build them up to make sure that they're solid enough and proven and tested and proven.
Speaker 3:Proven is a big one too.
Speaker 2:Proven is a big deal. So anybody can say that the ribeye area and the marbling EPDs are what they are, but how many people have actually followed them to the grid? How many people can actually sit here and say that these cattle do perform this way? And that's where the challenge comes in Now. With that said, do I want to discourage any young producers from wanting to get into the purebred side? Absolutely not. It's going to take a lot of years to get those proven genetics. You have the ability to go and purchase some proven genetics from some tremendous programs and great and reputable programs, and there's always ways to get kickstarted and I think you're seeing a lot of that, especially in the Angus side. Right, there's an Angus bull sale around every corner is basically what you can see, especially in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana.
Speaker 3:You know the red Angus is really coming on strong too. I have just as many red Angus sales that I help out with and ring those sales as I do the black Angus side too, and the red Angus side too, and they're the Red Angus Association. I'll give them credit. They've really been smoking and doing some good work out there promoting.
Speaker 2:They have. And the thing the Red Angus breed and you know this is getting into opinionated radio broadcast, right, they always are, that's right. The Red Angus breed, what I've always thought you know, prop them up and and keep them going, is their maternal side. Yeah, there's nothing prettier than a, than a good set of red angus cows that have been, that have been called appropriately, with good udders and you know good structure they are. They are as dominant of a maternal side as you can find in any, any portion of the industry.
Speaker 2:You know the charlotte side, I think, has got you know similar aspects and similar things in and you can with smaller breeds. Right, there they're not breeding five million or there's not five million calves, purebred calves, being born of those two associations like the angus side, right, and you know so. So you can condense those and you can be a little more specific, uh, across an entire breed when you have the, the lack of numbers like that. And that's where I think the red angus site can actually focus on and and you start seeing a lot. You know a lot of your friends in the, in the red angus deal we got you know robison's and trefers and and all those that we all do business with wassums yeah, absolutely yeah, and they've got tremendous programs.
Speaker 2:There's good cattle out there and it's fun to watch.
Speaker 3:It's fun to walk through their, through their herds yeah and it's always fun as a black angus guy to go talk to the red angus guys because you know there's always some good uh jokes back and forth that we always have to have. Absolutely we don't touch the hereford guys. Those guys don't. They're not as a joke worthy over there, they're a little bit more.
Speaker 2:We don't, we don't have any, we don't have any humor. Uh, go ahead, scott. Go ahead and give us kind of an up there. What? What are some of the upcoming bull sales that you're working on? Give, give some of your customers a little bit of a plug.
Speaker 3:This morning, I sure will you know. Our friend Eric Bowman, you know down in Rehm his sale's coming up here February 13th. We got Mouse Angus Ranch over here by Galva. That's coming up February 8th. The Smith Saddle Butte Ranch down in Harding County, south Dakota they're having theirs February 17th. Wassum Red Angus is on the 20th. Schriefer's was last weekend and then in Sydney now since Williston closed up, their livestock sale barn closed up last year. I was actually there for the very last sale, bull sale, so we got like DK Red Angus and then of course, and then we get into the Sorenson Angus, lbs Angus, sorenson Scimital and Angus. I should say so there's quite a few of those sales coming up in that area but they've moved them to Sydney since Williston closed up. So a lot of great people out there.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of good producers, a lot of good cattle and, again, these guys have been focusing on their programs for decades now and if you're interested in taking a look at their genetics or what they have to offer, you know, always give them a call, go, walk through the cows, see what their program's all about and see if it matches up with what your expectations are.
Speaker 2:It's going to be pretty important that your, that your purebred seed stock producer actually helps you with your marketing program. So ensure that that they've got those types of programs out there to help you market your cattle and make sure that you're getting the most bang for your buck for for the cattle that you're producing on your ranch. And, scott, I guess we'll just go right into, continue, right, right, right on into some sale calendars and we want to wish all of our seed stock producers and bull sale buyers out there the best luck in this upcoming season. There's a lot of great sales throughout the Upper Midwest as you get through North Dakota, south Dakota, montana, wyoming, minnesota and, of course, into our friends up in Canada as well. So take a look at the bull sale calendars and find the program that works for you On the Pfeiffer's land auction side, Scott, we've got a lot of tremendous sales coming up A lot of sales.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we mentioned the 1,952 acres in Grant and Sioux County coming up here on February 12th. Again, we're going to close that one down. You can watch the sale end at the K-Fire Agri-International Expo right there at the Civic Center. The next day we're going to be in Minot, north Dakota, offering 636 acres of cropland and a little bit of pasture land up in Botany County. That same day we're going to offer 160 acres in Renville County. That same day Jim and I are driving all the way back down to Kildare, north Dakota, where we're going to offer 1,273 acres of pasture land and cropland in Dunn County. The cropland there well into the 80s in the Soil Product.
Speaker 3:Is that right Really good stuff?
Speaker 2:yeah, and the breaks. You know this is as beautiful a place as you can find I was there this week and really, really 1,273 acres in Dunn County. It's just a tremendous offering.
Speaker 3:And you get to be at the Halliday Community Center, which is always a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Yep, exactly, absolutely. We're heading to Halliday 151 acres in Emmons County later the next week, with 80 acres in Mercer County, 154 acres in Oliver County, dual County, south Dakota, lemoore County, north Dakota, dickey County, morton County, ramsey County and more. We'll be back here in Bowman, north Dakota, offering some land in Slope County on February 25th 323 acres there as well, scott, tremendous sales coming up. Thank you for being on the show. We're short on time here. Once again, you and I talk way too much, it seems like, and for all of our listeners, thank you for listening to America's Land Auctioneer. I was your host here this Saturday morning. Andy Murdoch, find us here at the Bowman Regional Office. We have lots of great upcoming sales that are not on the website yet, so stay tuned. At Piverscom 1,000, not a bit of down.
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