A2B-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 21,2001
Action Of The Auction Lures, Keeps Employees At Sales Stables
Part 2 of 2
MICHELLE RANCK
Lancaster Farming Staff
Editor’s note: This article is
part two of a two-part series on
New Holland Sales Stables. Since
the business encompasses many
facets of agriculture, the articles
feature several people with asso
ciations to the sales stables.
NEW HOLLAND (Lancaster
Co.) There must be some
thing about the livestock auction
business.
Something about working
This picture shows the beef barn and arena when it was
built in 1950. In the auctioneer’s box at left is Charles Her
shey, featured in last week’s article. Aaron Kolb is at the
bottom right-hand corner, opening the door.
with animals, or watching the
market, or socializing with
farmers, or hearing the auc
tioneer’s chant, or buying the
best animals. Something that
could create employee loyalty,
stability, and long-lasting ca
reers.
Following Father’s Footsteps
Wayne Weidman of New Hol
land has worked at the sales st
ables since March 1944, while
his father worked there. One day
a week, Weidman would be
picked up from his one-room
school when he was 13 years old
to work from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. at
the auction.
He began leading cows and
calves through the ring. “That
was when we had both dairy and
beef sales in one day,” said
Weidman, “We didn’t have sep
arate barns for calves, so we sold
them after the beef.” Although
the hours were long, “I just liked
the work,” he said.
Even after 57 years in the
business, he still remembers his
beginning salary. “I got 75 cents
an hour, $7.50 a day ... $7.35
take-home pay,” he said.
He also remembers beginning
work at six or seven in the morn
ing on Thursday and getting
home on Friday evening.
Around 1955 he became barn
foreman and was responsible for
This truck is parked in front of original stockholder
Aaron Kolb’s (Norman Kolb’s father) home in East Lam
peter, Lancaster County.
“keeping everybody busy.”
Watching others taught him
how to dip horses and dairy
cows. “I always liked improving
the animals,” said Weidman. He
quickly became comfortable
with the process as he helped to
clip 100 horses every Sunday to
get ready for Monday’s sale.
Preparation for Monday’s
horse sale usually entailed wa
tering, bedding, feeding, and
currying the horses. Tuesday,
then, was a cleanup day. “We
cleaned out the stables by hand,
hauling manure out with a
dump cart and a horse when the
stables were smaller.”
Wednesdays he helped “take
in” dairy cows for the following
sale, which meant tying, clip
ping, and milking the animals
by hand. Thursdays featured the
dairy sale. In 1950, when the
beef barn was built, the dairy
sale was moved to Wednesdays.
Fridays, then, was another
cleanup day.
January through March
became draft horse season, as
work horses from mostly lowa
and Kansas came in a steady
clip five railroad cars every
week were unloaded at the sale
barn.
According to Weidman,
“Farmers bought them for
spring work. The bulk of them
sold their horses in the fall and
bought new ones in the spring so
they didn’t have to winter
them.”
The sales stables did not
always have a ring and sur
rounding bleachers, said Weid
man, who remembers a platform
which buyers stood on an look at
the animals being led around
below.
Weidman has seen changes
and shifts in his years in agricul
ture. “Herefords used to be the
main beef breed, then Charolais,
and now blacks and black bald
Vi \
Every Thursday the fed steers, feeder steers and heifers, then cull cows keep the ring
filled from 9:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. An average of 1,300-1,400 head go through the ring on
Thursdays. Here Dale Stoltzfus, auctioneer, David Kolb, at the computer, and ring man
Ron Ranck keep the sale moving during the afternoon.
Dairy farmers deliberate on which animals to purchase to increase their herds.
ies,” he said. “There was a time
when some buyers bought noth
ing but Hereford cattle.”
Another change has been the
steady decrease in the number of
buyers at the sale. “There was a
time when the beef ring was
nearly full to the top of buyers,”
he said. “Now there’s fewer
‘little’ butchers buying two,
three, four, or ten animals.”
Even with this trend, how
ever, Weidman predicts that
there will always be a need for
the sale barn, as farmers will still
need a place to sell their ani
mals.
He also sorted fed cattle for
many years, “before we had a
roof over that area,” he said.
Sorting cattle, in fact, is one of
his favorite aspects of the job. “I
always enjoyed seeing how to
line the cattle up for size. I try to
put the better ones in one pen
and the rest in another.”
An Order Buyer’s View
H. Paul Good, Fivepointville,
estimates that he was 20 or 21
when he began buying animals.
Now 89, Good still spends his af-
ternoons at the sale barn buying
animals.
Over the years he has spent
many such afternoons at the
barn buying animals for custom
ers since his first purchase, a $3B
heifer at the nearby Green
At the Monday horse sale, approximately 200-250
horses are sold. The supply, while mostly riding horses
and ponies, includes a few draft and driving horses also.
Dragon auction.
Following in the footsteps of
his father, also an order buyer,
Good is a familiar face around
the barns. Ironically, he didn’t
chose the business as much as
the business “chose” him when
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