No Bull: Red Bluff Bull & Gelding sale a big deal

Photo by Pamela Britton-Baer

This week marks the kickoff of the 71st annual Red Bluff Bull & Gelding sale, but for local bull owners Mike and Char Avila of Cottonwood, the week of Jan. 24 through Jan. 28 promises to be both fun and … nerve-racking.

“I stress,” admitted Char Avila, a self-proclaimed nervous Nellie who has 10 bulls entered in the sale. “(I worry) are the bulls going to eat? Will they behave?”

These things and more top Avila’s list of potential disasters, but that hasn’t stopped the Avilas from entering the sale for the past 17 years.

“We go for several reasons,” said Char. “One, is to market our bulls. Two is the camaraderie.” She adds later, “This is one of the best bull sales around.”

For Mike and Char, the week of the Bull Sale means a full house with guest from the San Francisco Bay area. Days are filled making treks back and forth to the Red Bluff fair grounds in between taking care of their livestock.

“It’s all fun,” said Char.

The Avilas have lived in Cottonwood for 10 years. Char’s family has always been in the cattle business, but for Mike, raising cattle is somewhat new.

“I showed steers in FFA,” he said, but it was Char’s family that taught Char everything she knows. She grew up on a cattle ranch in Half Moon Bay.

“We moved up here,” said Char,” and it was like coming from a refrigerator to the oven.”

But they love their life in Cottonwood. Their days are filled with feeding and graining bulls, pulling blankets off of horses, barn chores and breeding cows.

It’s a full-time job, they admitted, but Mike looks upon it as a therapy of sorts.

A construction worker who specializes in building roads, Mike would rather be at the ranch than anywhere else.

“I enjoy all the phases of raising cattle and the ranch work that is involved,” said Mike. “With ranching there always is something different to do.

I do enjoy my construction job,” he added, “but things have changed over the last 30 years and it’s not as fun anymore. What I have learned in the construction trade has helped me maintain our ranch.”

Whatever they’re doing, it must be working. Two of the Avila’s bulls were named Champion Limousin and Champion Charolais at the 2010 Red Bluff Bull & Gelding Sale. Last year they had three bulls in the sale. They fetched an average price of $3,900.

Each year is different, however, Char admitting, “You never know what you’re going to get.”

“The biggest part is the exposure,” added Mike, his wife explaining that she’s the one in the sale pen while Mike is ringside.

“It’s exciting,” she said, Char confessing her heart starts pounding when the auctioneer goes to work.

Still, it can be heartbreaking to say goodbye to the animals they’ve raised.

“I had a friend helping out,” said Char. “She cried.”

So has Char, but saying goodbye comes along with the territory.

“It’s fun to see how the calves turn out each year,” said Char. “From conception to the end, to the outstanding bull or heifer that we produced, or the dud ... There are always specials one that I get attached to. But we try and get them all good homes.”

That’s why they do it, they said. That and one other very important reason.

“We have made great friends in the cattle business,” said Char. “We call them our cow family. Just like our horse family.”