market update

[bruce2288]

Slaughter cow prices here in Nebraska have dropped$10/hundred in the last 3 weeks. Sale barn managers are telling people to not bother with paying the $3 to have older cows preg checked as they are all going to slaughter. No Moisture so no buyers. I sold 3 cows this week,preg checked at the salebarn, bred. 8,6 and 4 years old. All sold for weigh up price 66-71 cents. The four year old weighed 1110 brought $788. If you have grass there are some good buys on bred cows in Nebraska. She was chocolate colored which is frowned upon and not a bunch of 20 head but still a cheap cow.

I am going to have to sell at least 15 more and if it doesn't rain many more. Hard to decide how many and when to sell. If it doesn't rain and no grass at pasture time cow sales will be through the roof and price will probably drop like a rock. I hope where you folks are you are getting rain,

[gone-a-milkin]

I am sorry to hear you are so dry up there.
I fear it is going to go that way for a lot of folks again this year.
Gotta do what you gotta do.

Hopefully I am wrong and the grass will grrow well for a change.
<crosses fingers>

[CIW]

Bruce,
Where did you sell at?

[Miss Kay]

We live down here in south Texas and until now the drought has not affected us personally. We have near year round grazing on great Bermuda pasture irrigated from the canal that runs along the back of our property. But, the water has run out. All the water down here comes from the Rio Grande river, even the city drinking water, and it is running out. This week the news said this is the worst drought for our area since they have been keeping records. The farmers have been told we get two irrigations this year and that's it. As you can imagine, there is no hay either so once they turn that water off, we have about 4 weeks of grazing and then we have no idea what we will do for feed. I don't know if we can even have it shipped in. Looks like some very hard decisions are coming up.

[bruce2288]

CIW I sold at Loup City commission company. There also big sale barns at Erickson-Spaulding, Burwell, Kearney, and Ogallala.






Miss Kay, you can always get feed trucked in, but at what cost. Here alfalfa is $250-$300/ton. Corn stock bales 90-100/ton. Feed companies did a seminar here and figured it would cost around $1000/cow to dry lot feed a cow for a year.

[CIW]

Just like you eluded to in your first post: Color and fat sells higher.

This is an excerpt from the sale last week in Columbus.

Slaughter cow market higher than a week ago with the top cow
Weighing 1675# and brought $83. Majority of the cows caring good
Flesh brought $71 to $78. Cows not caring as much flesh
Brought $63 to $70. Thin cows brought $48 to $58. Slaughter

Valentine, Bassett, Atkinson and Burwell have done better than the norm for us in the past.
I don't know how far it for you to travel. The cost of the trip may eat up any difference in price.
I look at cattleusa.com

[opportunity]

We are hoping for snow tonight. We ran out of grass on our pastures early last summer and had to start feeding hay. Half the people who pasture with us in the summer sold thir cows couldn't get hay at a price to feed them all winter. Hopefully we get grass in 4-6 weeks and we can turn out as I only have a few bales of hay left.

[rancher1913]

a lot of ranchers are just trying to make it to spring grass but they have over extended themselves and will probably have to sell out this summer no mater how much rain we get. picked up a semiload of calves from limon to drop at the salebarn in brush because the rancher had sold his truck and trailer as well as almost everything else of value to feed his cows this winter, nice looking calves but at what cost. felt really bad for the guy, probably in his mid 60's so not many options for him. another bad oman has been the bull sales, 2 year old registerd bulls great epdm's selling for 1200 bucks and the rancher lets them go for that because he can't feed them any longer. this tells me a lot of ranchers arn't buying something they think they may have to sell in a few months, those are my thoughts and the reason I have not bought any new bulls. the only cow people around here doing well are the dairy's--they are expanding like crazy, buying up farm ground and feed like there's no tomorrow.

[gone-a-milkin]

I see the dairies here expanding too.
How else are they going to make any money (that is their thinking).

My Farmer Boss has picked up a bunch of late stage replacement heifers
towards the end of winter here.
I guess the breeder over-estimated his feed supply.
Thankfully he got rid of them before they lost too much condition.

Good bloodlines, very nice animals.
They are all freshening now, and yes it did cut into the reserves of feed here,
but so far there is barely enough.
Its been raining and the triticale and ryegrass are both super close to grazing.
Another week or so, if the weather doesnt surprise us.

[bruce2288]

The big question here is how long the grass will last. There is about 6inches of moist soil, then powder dry as deep as you dig. extension is saying figure on half rate stocking if the rainfall is actually normal. I am planting 50 acres of oats , some sudan and turnips hopeing to keep part of the herd and flock.

[NeHomesteader]

We are going through the same thing,having to make tough choices as to which cows go and which stay. We have already sold 10 cows that were older to have hopefully enough grass. Instead of selling ours bred we calved them out,sold the calf for a good price and then weighed the cow up. It is very hard to do when they are your babies. Last week we did sell a bred heifer that was going to be a late calver but she brought right at 1400,so nothing to complain about. We always sell at Valentine and they have been more than fair to us. Hope we all make it through this drought without selling our whole herd. It would just do my husband in because all of ours are purebreds and Ai'd. He has worked so hard to make a great herd of angus cows. Hopefully it won't come to that.

[spud]

How can there be a beef shortage and ranchers and farmers are still getting the short stick. Tired of how americans let's big gov and big ag screw the average farmer over. Breaks my heart to read that after many years of hard work, many of you are selling out your heart and soul, and were paying premium prices at the store.

[bruce2288]

spud, Slaughter prices are actually at the high end of the historic range. It is not government or so called big ag that is our problem it is mother nature.

[rancher1913]

have to disagree with you bruce, big ag is the problem here. the megadairys pay 150 bucks a ton for anything they can use for bedding and don't blink an eye at 300 a ton for feed, they buy everything in site and for 50 miles around and sit on it. I tried renting cornstalks this winter for afterfeed, usually they go for about 30 bucks an acre and you get maybe 3 months on them. this year the megadairies bought up every acre of cornstalks at 120 an acre and then had it custom bailed and hauled to the dairy. the current bid on corn silage for the upcomming year is 80 a ton standing in the field and it would not surprise me to see it hit a 125 if the drought holds. no way I can afford those prices even with the decent price of calves. I usually try and keep a couple of years feed stacked just for a drought but I haven't had a crop in three years so I'm down to nothing in the yard and no way to afford more because of the megadairies, who just keep expanding and buying everything in site.

[NeHomesteader]

Rancher 1913 - I have to TOTALLY agree with you on this one. As they say , the rich keep getting richer..........

[spud]

I'm no expert on the subject, but haven't big packing houses changed regulations on requirements for all slaughterhouses, puttting most of the small ones out of business? Also, don't the big slaugherhouses hire accross the border employees and they work in awful conditions while the big government looks the other way? I've read some horror stories about the smithfield plant in NC and similiar stories about big packing plants in Neb. Not fair IMHO when the small guy is paying their employees a much higher and fairer wage.

[francismilker]

Not too hard to come to the conclusion that "someone" doesn't want us little people to make it on our own without total dependence on the govt......

That being said, the problem is bigger than mega dairys or mega ranches hoarding up the feed. This is the same thing as main street america suffering huge losses due to big box stores. The underlying problem is that folks continue to value the ability to save a buck or two and buy it from China instead of supporting the little man. If more people would boycott big box stores and food monopolies, eventually someone would get the point imho.......

[ramiller5675]

Maybe it's just me, but "big ag" and "big government" ain't the reason I've been fighting drought for the last 2 years. Are they somehow making it hot and dry that I'm not seeing?

[bruce2288]

I sold another 6 head after preging. 76-82 I am thankful for these prices it could be 40 cents.

Rancher1913, Those corn stalk prices are indeed high. I just brought my cows home from stalks friday.. I pay $8 an acre 40 miles away. Here where I live they go $15-$20, but many are being baled. Corn stalk bales about $100/ton.

Old chinese saying "May you live in interesting times" We indeed are.

[Allen W]

Sale barn here has several loads of calves listed for the sale tomorrow out of Montana and Nebraska was the other state I believe.