Ralph put 150 Holsteins up for sale, 80 bred heifers, and 70 open heifers and calves, at an auction Aug. 25 at Hugh Fawcett Auctions in Winchester. A week earlier he sold most of his machinery at an auction on his farm. He privately sold some of his land.

"I just felt that, instead of keeping the cattle all winter and feeding them, we might as well sell them. We might not get any more for them next spring," says Ralph, who doesn’t have the space to accommodate the imminent calves.

The high price on the day was about $1,000 for bred heifers and the low was about $300 for calves. While other farmers were out making hay, Ralph observed the auction from within the sale barn where buyers were scarce.

"For the situations it is, they’re not going too bad," he says. "We haven’t got the export market so peoples’ barns are pretty full, and it’s too nice of a day."

Ralph, who sells dairy replacement heifers, has been known to own morean 1,000 head at a time. He sold a lot of cattle directly to other farmers.

He doesn’t rule out selling the rest of his 400 to 500 cattle when the market gets better. Ralph, who farms 400 acres and rents another 400, says he’ll probably cash crop for a year and see if he can weather the storm.