Online auction provides finale for livestock sale after coronavirus disruption
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald From left: Jacob Barth of Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers, Kirsten Coombs of the Grant County Fair livestock committee and Alexis Smith of Yarbro Auctioneers monitor the bidding in the livestock sale Friday.
MOSES LAKE — It has been a very different spring and summer all the way around, and nowhere was that more evident than at the annual livestock auction at the Grant County Fairgrounds on Friday.
No line of just-groomed animals and neatly dressed 4-H and FFA exhibitors waiting to enter the sale ring. No crowd of buyers, nobody taking bids, no auctioneer setting a brisk pace. In the year of the coronavirus outbreak, the in-person auction was canceled, so organizers turned to an online auction.
That wasn’t a challenge for the auctioneers — in fact, Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers has been conducting online auctions for six or seven years, said auctioneer Jacob Barth. For this one, the company set up shop at the fairgrounds in a portable office.
Mike Wallace, a member of the committee that oversees the livestock sale, said part of a successful project is bringing the animal to the fair in the most marketable condition.
“The clock was ticking for market readiness,” Wallace said. But buyers supported the exhibitors and allowed them to sell their animals in a timely manner.
A minimum price is established, called the “floor price,” before the auction, and the floor prices were strong, Wallace said.
“The sale went really well,” he said.
The auction actually went live not long after the catalog was uploaded to the website Thursday afternoon. Judges evaluated the entries Thursday, which determined the order of sale.
Barth said the catalog preparation was largely the work of volunteers.
“They had a lot of work that they put in,” he said.
The auction had 197 bidders by 10 a.m. Friday, which was about the same as the bidders for previous in-person auctions, Barth said. It was online but otherwise not much different from an in-person auction, he said. Just like at the live auction, each animal was individually offered for bid, and just like at the live auction, there was a time limit on the bidding.
If bids were placed in the last minute of the time allotted, the bidding for that animal automatically was extended another minute, Barth said. Just like at the live auction, the next animal waited in line until the previous one was sold.
Some buyers were skeptical of an online auction, Barth said, but for the sale at the fairgrounds, they understood the necessity. Some of the skeptics even acknowledged an online sale wasn’t so bad, Barth said.
The fair livestock auction probably will continue to have an online component even after the in-person auction returns, Barth said.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].