Fall and spring 2023 bull sales are behind us, but as our marketing is analyzing and preparing our annual bull sale data presentation at convention this year in Lincoln, Nebraska, one data point stood out to me the most. Bull transfers.

Transferring animals has been a topic discussed often in our board meetings and even amongst staff. RAAA has tried to enable timely transfer of cattle for mutual benefit. This year after digging into the sale data, Cory Peters found the top 15 transfer states. The table shown exhibits sales to which the marketing team traveled.  Based on these numbers, transfer rates remain below expectations. I also gathered total bull transferred in 2023. Bulls born from 2021 to Dec. 31, 2022, saw only 11,596 head of 71,504 bulls transferred.

Now some may ask why is it so important to transfer my bulls within the REDSPpro system? For commercial marketing purposes it is extremely helpful for our value-added team when commercial producers enroll in our Feeder Calf Certification Program. This allows a smoother process when verifying if the bulls used are registered bulls and what category they are. This can be done if the producer enrolling has the registration numbers of those bulls, but in all reality, there are many who do not keep track of those. Which then in turns leads to an Easter egg hunt for the RAAA specialist enrolling that producer to find their bulls.

So as we start a new bull sale season, I would encourage seedstock producers to transfer their bulls, but also please send the staff and the board feedback on how to make transferring bulls easy and slightly enjoyable for you, the breeder.