Huge interest in online bull auction
Record prices were reached at the first combined online on-farm Meadowslea Angus Bull sale yesterday.
Principal owner David Giddings said the sale had been ‘‘fantastic’’ with a record bull price of $35,500 to Cricklewood Stud in Wairoa. Another stud bull was purchased for $18,000 by Pikoburn Angus in Tuatapere.
A total of 71 out of the 76 bulls for sale were offered at an average of $10,080.
‘‘That’s a record for us,’’ he said. The Fairlie stud developed the online helmsman-style (private treaty) system offering bidders live sales on the stud’s own website with genetic expert commentary and information on each animal.
It was run simultaneously with the on-farm auction. Bidding online was open a week before the sale took place.
Giddings said some bids were up to $16,000 before the sale started. ‘‘We were thrilled.’’
He said 20 per cent of bids were online which could be accessed off site and onsite. A livestream video showed the price of stock and the leading bid which was available on large screens on site as well.
Interest in the new system saw a crowd of about 250 at the sale on site, double the usual number, Giddings said.
‘‘I think people liked the idea and wanted to see how it all went,’’ he said.
Ten bulls were sold to buyers not in attendance and 40,000 had watched the videos online.
Now that they had embraced technology and had such a successful sale, Gidding said it would be continued for future sales such as the spring bull sale in October.
Meadowslea was established as a romney stud by the Giddings family in 1929 while the addition of the Angus stud was founded in 1985.