Montana Video Auction Trends — Montana-Origin Lots, 2026

The 2026 Montana season, sale by sale

The roster of the 2026 Montana calf trade on the video — every sale that carried Montana calves, in the order it ran, split into the fall-delivery summer forward sales and the earlier Superior sales that price for near-term delivery. Read this table for how much moved where, and in what form: the lot and head counts are each sale’s Montana depth, and the base-weight and weaned columns are the kind of cattle it drew. Because each sale’s weight differs, calf prices per cwt are not comparable in this chart. Price is actually compared, weight for weight, in the band-by-band table that follows.

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The same calf, twelve sales running

Head-weighted $/cwt for Montana lots in each 50-lb band, at each of the twelve summer forward sales in date order. This is the comparison the headline averages hide. Figures marked · rest on under 200 head. A dash (—) means that sale offered no Montana calf in that band — a gap in what was consigned, not missing data.

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Early season against late season

The twelve summer sales pooled into three periods — June 16–26 (281 lots, 38,021 head), July 6–30 (557 lots, 87,492 head) and Aug 10–Sep 17 (349 lots, 46,197 head) — so every band rests on a real sample instead of a single consignment. The June column consolidates Northern Livestock and Superior; the July and Aug–Sep columns carry all three houses. Head-weighted $/cwt, Montana lots only. The change columns run June to Aug–Sep — the full slide across the summer.

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Every steer band fell from June to the late period. The June→late slide on steers runs from 11.9% at 500–549 lb to 14.1% at 700–749 lb — $65 to $63 per cwt off June money — and the middle of the book, the 500–649 lb bands where most of the volume sits, gave up 11.9–12.7%. Heifers gave up less. The light heifer bands fell 6–10%, and the heifer bands that finished at or above June: +$10.61 at 650–699. Mixed loads fell hardest of all, 13–18% in the full-sample bands.

The Montana season book

All 1,187 summer-run Montana lots pooled across the twelve sales of Superior, Northern Livestock and Western Video Market, by gender, 50-lb base-weight band and weaning status — the widest comparable Montana sample on the page. The earlier prompt-delivery sales are excluded here so the bands stay like-for-like.

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By house

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What the market paid for weaning

Pooled across the twelve summer sales of Superior, Northern Livestock and Western Video Market: weaned lots averaged 612 lb and bawling lots 570 lb, so a straight weaned-versus-bawling average is a weight comparison in disguise. Inside a single 50-lb band it is a fair fight. These are the bands that carried both.

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The premium is not a flat bonus — it reverses as the calves get heavier, and the crossover sits at about 700 lb on steers and 550 lb on heifers. Below it the weaned lots brought more: steers +$36.25 at 450–499, +$28.92 at 500–549, +$9.14 at 550–599, +$10.67 at 600–649, +$8.47 at 650–699; heifers +$10.65 at 450–499, +$9.47 at 500–549. At and above it the sign flips: steers −$7.68 at 700–749, −$27.20 at 750–799; heifers −$9.83 at 550–599, −$6.00 at 600–649, −$15.37 at 650–699, −$4.55 at 700–749. Check the lot counts in the table before leaning on any single row — a band whose weaned side is one lot is anecdote, not signal.

Delivery window — the thing weaning travels with

All 1,187 summer-run Montana lots (Superior, Northern Livestock and Western Video Market) by contracted delivery window, head-weighted.

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Where the cattle shipped from

169 distinct Montana shipping points across every 2026 sale on this page, summer and earlier alike. This is what “Montana-only” means here in practice.

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Shipping point is the delivery or scale location published in the lot listing, not necessarily the ranch address — a lot can ship from a Montana scale and have been raised across a state line, and a few in this set say so in the lot description. Twenty-five Western Video Market lots publish only a state code and are excluded from this table but included everywhere else.

Sale terms, house by house

Montana cattle are consigned to all of these houses. Slide is cents per pound of delivered weight away from the listed base weight, by weight class, as published in each house’s most recent terms.

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Understanding the slide — and why it bites in a drought

A price slide adjusts the per-cwt price for the gap between a calf’s listed base weight and its actual delivered weight, after pencil shrink. It is quoted in cents per pound and it is steeper on light calves, because a few pounds matter more when the per-pound price is high.

Most slides are one-way. They dock the price only when cattle deliver heavier than base. If your calves come in light — a real risk when you price in July for October delivery off Montana high country in a dry year — a one-way slide does nothing for you. You are paid the base price on fewer pounds, and you do not capture the higher per-pound value lighter calves actually command. The protection runs one direction, toward the buyer (Univ. of Wyoming Extension).

A two-way slide also adjusts the price up when cattle deliver light. It exists in writing — Superior publishes a “2 Way Slide” with a 25-lb stop, and Cattle Country Video publishes a two-way option — but it is elected, not automatic, and it is capped by that stop. Past the stop you are back to no adjustment. The seller has to ask for it and get it written into the lot terms.

Related reading: Getting paid for what you shipped: the calf weight problem. Slide terms: Superior, Cattle Country Video, Western Video Market.

Video auctions still to come in 2026

Every remaining 2026 video cattle auction that sells Montana consignments, as published by each house. Consignment deadlines are shown where the house publishes them — they run two to four weeks ahead of the sale, so the decision point is earlier than the sale date suggests. Bull, horse and single-ranch production sales are excluded.

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Sources, most recently read September 22, 2026: Superior auction schedule · Western Video Market sale schedule · Cattle Country Video sales · Northern Livestock auction list. Dates and deadlines change; confirm with the house or your rep before you plan around one.

How this page is built

• Montana-only, lot by lot. Every figure comes from individual auction lots whose published shipping or delivery point is in Montana. Lots are read from each sale’s own catalogue and results, filtered to Montana, and joined to the hammer price the auction posted for that lot. No regional or multi-state averages appear anywhere on this page. This matters because the USDA video reports cannot do it: AMS pools Montana into a seven-state North Central block (CO, IA, MT, ND, NE, SD, WY) and never breaks out a consignment’s state, so a true Montana number has to be built from the sale books themselves.
• Houses covered. Northern Livestock Video Auction, Superior Livestock and Western Video Market — the three houses that publish per-lot results with an identifiable Montana origin. Cattle Country Video is not included: it publishes results as PDFs that carry no state field, so its Montana lots cannot be isolated after a sale.
• Calves only. Yearlings, spayed heifers, bred cows and other non-calf classes are excluded so the bands compare like with like.
• Prices. The published hammer price in dollars per hundredweight. Averages are weighted by listed head, not by lot, so a 300-head load counts three times a 100-head load. No-sales and scratched lots are excluded from averages.
• Weight bands. 50-lb bands on the catalogued base weight, not delivered weight. Mixed steer-and-heifer loads are banded on the head-weighted average of their two published base weights. Bands under three lots are flagged ·thin; in the cross-sale table, figures resting on under 200 head are flagged too.
• Gender. Steers, heifers, and mixed steer-and-heifer loads kept as three separate categories. On a mixed load the single published price is the steer price and most carry a stated heifer discount back, so the load’s blended realized price is below the figure shown. Mixed loads are never folded into the steer figures.
• Weaning. “Weaned” means the auction catalogued the lot in a weaned class. “Bawling” means it did not — it is the absence of a weaning representation, not an asserted management practice. Where lot descriptions were available to check, every lot describing a weaning period also carried a weaned class, so the two definitions coincide.
• Books as posted. Figures are read from each house’s publicly posted sale book as it stood on the read date — this build reads the books as posted August 22, 2026 for the fourteen sales through August 21, as posted September 4, 2026 for the September 3 Labor Day sale, as posted September 15, 2026 for the September 14 Fall Premier sale, and as posted September 22, 2026 for the September 17 Video Auction sale. Houses amend posted books after settlement, Northern Livestock in particular, so a sale’s lot and head counts can shift between reads; this page always follows the current posted book rather than freezing an earlier read.
• What is not here. Delivered weights, realized slide adjustments and final settlement values are private between buyer and seller and are never published. Every price on this page is the price struck at the auction, before any slide.

Sources, most recently read September 22, 2026: Northern Livestock Video Auction catalogue and posted results · Superior Livestock lot results · Western Video Market sale results. Each house conducted its own auction and published the original lot information and prices; Honest Cattle filtered to Montana origin and performed the weight-band, gender and weaning analysis. These are not official sale-book exports. Live-ring cash markets: Montana Live-Ring Auction Trends · The full marketing picture: Montana Cattle Markets · Weekly Montana price calls: Weekly Market Forecast. Automated collection; every figure is source-linked, and gaps are disclosed. Figures are informational, not an offer or appraisal.