Methodology and about
Where the numbers come from
Every price on this site comes from USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Livestock, Poultry and Grain Market News auction reports, many of them prepared with state departments of agriculture. We download the published PDF reports for each barn, read the price tables, and republish the numbers with a link to the exact report. US government reports are not subject to copyright (17 U.S.C. 105). We are not affiliated with USDA or with any sale barn.
Prices are USDA/state Market News reports; verify with the barn before selling.
What we read from each report
From each "Livestock Weighted Average Report" we keep the report date, total receipts (this week, last reported and last year, as printed), and every feeder and slaughter cattle row priced per hundredweight on actual weight: class, grade, head count, weight range, average weight, price range, weighted average price, and USDA's notes such as Unweaned, Value Added or Fleshy. Replacement cattle (bred cows, pairs) and per-head prices are left out.
How we check the parsing
Accuracy comes before coverage. A report is skipped, not guessed at, if any line in a price table does not match the expected layout, if an average weight or price falls outside its own range, if a value is outside a plausible range, or if the priced head count runs far above the receipts. Our parser is tested against rows checked by hand in reports from Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Georgia, Nebraska, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.
Current totals: 8,481 reports parsed, 116 skipped. Skipped reports usually mean a canceled sale or a layout we do not read yet.
Benchmarks, trends and the price slide
A barn's benchmark price for a weight band (for example 500-599 lb) is the head-weighted average of the reported average prices of every steer lot in that band, in the barn's benchmark grade. The benchmark grade is Medium and Large 1, except at barns that report more steers as Medium and Large 1-2 over the last 12 months, where 1-2 is used and labeled. Lots USDA tags as Unweaned, Value Added, Fleshy and so on are included. The 52-week trend shows one point per week. The price slide shows the same average for each 100 lb class on the latest sale day. Changes compare the latest sale with the previous sale (labeled "last week" when it was 6 to 8 days earlier) and with the sale closest to 52 weeks earlier, within 10 days.
Estimated $/head is average weight times average price divided by 100. Nearby distances are straight lines between town centers (US Census Gazetteer), not road miles.
Which barns get a page in search
A barn page is open to search engines only when it has at least 8 USDA reports in the last 12 months. Barns with fewer reports still have a page, marked noindex, and are left out of the sitemap.
Update schedule
We check USDA for new reports daily and rebuild pages only when a report changes.
Price alerts and the barn price box
Every barn page has a sign-up for one email per sale when that barn's new USDA report comes in (double opt-in; see privacy). Barns can show their latest prices on their own website with our free price box.
About
Sale Barn Prices is an independent site. Questions, corrections, or a barn you would like added: email [email protected].