A morning at one of the state’s busiest cattle auctions

BILLINGS — At a 23-acre facility on the east side of Billings along Interstate 90, cattle trucked in from across Montana and northern Wyoming huff cloudy breath into the chilly morning air. It’s around 8 a.m. on Oct. 30.

Auction workers shuffle into a small, dusty building where a TV plays reruns of Western classics. They slide into chaps, shrug on well-loved Carhartt jackets, take final swigs of coffee and punch their time cards before venturing toward their horses. Outside, strands of sunlight warm the dozens of pens that make up the Billings Livestock Commission’s cattle yard.

Throughout the ensuing 12-hour event, about 300 ranchers and their roughly 4,300 cattle will move through the pens and into the adjoining auction house, shuffling through a series of mechanical gates until they