Ty Thompson grew up in the cattle industry, as his father was a livestock auctioneer and owned Riverton Livestock Auction in Wyoming. He would travel with him during the summers of his childhood. Ty wasn’t involved in the industry in high school and had aspirations of playing basketball in college, but in his words, “It didn’t really work out,” and he went back to working at a sale barn after his first year in college.
In 1992, Ty quit college and went to the Western College of Auctioneering. He had an opportunity to hone his skills by selling five days a week for 10-12 years. He also participated in the Livestock Marketing Association’s (LMA) World Livestock Auctioneer Championship beginning when he was 20 years old, winning reserve champion twice and also runner-up champion. Finally, in 2009, Ty won the championship.
Since his time in the competition, Ty said the general chant (also known as “bid calling”) has improved, and it is impressive how good auctioneers are, and the championship gives them a chance to showcase their talents.
Ty’s advice for those looking to get into the auction business is to align yourself with a local auctioneer, stockyard or auction company because they are always looking for someone who wants to help them, and in turn, they will help someone willing to help themselves.
“I think if you can get in with a reputable auction company in your area, that is the best way to do it,” Ty told WLJ. “Don’t be afraid to do jobs outside of auctioneering. Don’t be afraid to do anything that has to do with the auction yard and show the people that you’re willing to do the work that you need to put in to be successful. Then you’ll move into the auctioneering part of it, and by then, you’ll know the business from the ground up.”
Ty said the competition highlights the role of the auctioneer in what LMA does, helping their member markets and “fighting not just for the auction markets, but the customers of those auction markets.”
Ty said while he enjoys the industry’s auctioneering aspect, he also enjoys the cattle part of the business. He is the auctioneer at Northern Livestock Video Auction, and he said the Early Fall Preview auction in August was $2-3 higher across the board, and replacement heifers were selling $20-25/cwt higher. Ty said at all three auctions held during the summer, the demand was strong, and there is optimism in the market going into the fall.
While there may be optimism going forward, Ty noted several factors will influence the market, including the price of corn, the economy and beef demand.
“I contend we’re short enough in fed cattle that even if our demand would drop a little bit, we’re still going to be fine,” Ty said. “But if our demand would really drop both in exports and domestically, that would be a real problem.”
Ty spoke about the competitive livestock marketing method of buyers that are actively competing against each other, and he said having the auctioneer as “the dealer in the card game” creates enthusiasm, “and when you get a good group of buyers together competitively bidding on cattle, you really can create a better, more transparent market.”
Ty believes you can have price discovery and competition with video and the brick-and-mortar auction yards. He said the video markets offer a type of forward contracting, as the commodity markets for feeders are generally higher in the summer than in the fall.
“Both the brick-and-mortar and the video auction have their different pluses,” Ty said. “But the video auctions have—especially in our part of the world—done a lot of good in my mind for the rancher.”
While the market for cattle has been good in Montana, Ty also stated the horse auction market has been phenomenal. He attributed the rise in prices to a shortage of people breeding and raising horses and the “‘Yellowstone’ effect” of nonranchers paying a premium for horses. Ty noted while there are more boutique sales of 40-50 horses at a time, Billings remains the largest auction market in the country, selling 500-700 horses a month. Ty noted while it sounds like a large amount, 10 years ago they would sell 900-1,300 horses a month. He attributed the decrease to fewer horses nationwide.
“I feel the horse market could be a little toppy right now; there are people starting to breed more now. They’re starting to build the numbers a little,” Ty said. “But I think the fact of having a horse just to have a horse might wear off just a little bit, and you can only sell so many $50,000-plus pleasure riding geldings until you run out of customer base. And so I could see the horse market may be backing off a little bit on nonperformance horses, but it would still be high because it’s unbelievably good right now.” — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
