Spending on bulls at the 81^st annual Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale on Jan. 29 more than held its own. But it was the winning bids in the stock dog and gelding auctions that generated the loudest buzz among attendees of the Northern California gathering.

The two auctions set records on Jan. 28 with a cattle dog sold for $45,000 to Neal Sillar of Penn Valley, Calif., and a horse sold to Bill Thomas of Ione, Calif., for $48,000. The gelding sale topped $1.1 million in total sales for 55 horses, easily topping the $760,750 generated for 42 horses last year. Horses sold for an average of $20,632.

Bull buyers at the week’s marquee sale shelled out more than $1.34 million for 290 animals, for an average of nearly $4,629 per bull. The total was the highest since 2016, when bidders spent $1.49 million for 305 bulls. The record total of $1.56 million was set in 2015, when the average of $6,554 was also an all-time high.

This year’s top-priced bull was an Angus sold for $30,000 to Shufelberger Ranches of Millville, Calif., which also bought the second-highest priced bull – also an Angus – for $18,000. But most winning bids were in the $3,000 to $7,000 range.

“We’re happy with what we did,” said Travis Heffner of the California State University, Chico Beef Unit after selling an Angus bull for $5,000. “I think cattle prices are up a little bit right now.”

The sale capped off nearly a week of livestock auctions and events at the Tehama District Fairgrounds in Red Bluff, Calif., including the 14th annual online feeder and replacement heifer sale on Jan. 27. The annual auctions can serve as a barometer for where live cattle prices are headed for the coming year, and this year's big totals are consistent with a nationwide strengthening of cattle prices as many Western ranchers trim their herds in response to drought.

“We’re pretty lucky in that we have pretty good access to water because we have a well,” said Heffner, a beef technician at Chico State. “A lot of guys on district water are in trouble.”

A week of sales

Bids in Red Bluff opened for the week at the online cattle sale sponsored by Western Video Market in Cottonwood, Calif. About 80 lots were sold, with weaned heifers topping out at $196 per hundredweight and weaned steers reaching $221 per hundredweight. Both high bids bested last year’s $187 and $200, respectively.

Buyers spent $162,500 for 17 stock dogs, an average of $9,559 per dog. Sillar’s winning bid for 208 Skittles, a female border collie sold by Jeff Clausen of Melba, Idaho, easily eclipsed the previous record of $30,000 apiece paid for a pair of female border collies in 2018. The total surpassed the $148,500 paid for 17 dogs in 2021.

The Red Bluff sale was one of the few in 2021 that wasn’t cancelled or moved online because of coronavirus-related restrictions on public gatherings. As they did last year, organizers in 2022 limited attendance to consigners, trade-show vendors and those who purchased a $20 “buyer’s pass” that was valid through the week.

A buyer-consigner dinner and a bull-riding competition returned this year after being shelved in 2021. The bull ride drew a packed house in the Pauline Davis Pavilion, the fairgrounds’ largest arena, on Jan. 29.