Big boys pay the bills

[SBMF 2015]

Hauled a goose neck load of fats direct to Tyson Tuesday morning. 3 hfrs, 7 strs. Avg weight 1,582. The check before shrink and ins was over $21,000.
If the hfrs avg 1300, and I'm not sure they did. That would have made the strs 1,702. If they yield 60% that makes them 1,021 hanging wt.
They were all 19-20 months old.

 

[Buck Randall]

Will you get a report on how they grade out? Curious how many primes were in that group.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Will you get a report on how they grade out? Curious how many primes were in that group.

Yes, we get an abbreviated version. How many of each quality and yield grade, but not the sex of each. So say there is a prime YG 5, we don't get to find out if it was a str or hfr because we sell live. If we sold in the rail we would get an itemized line for each animal; carcass wt, %yield, sex, quality and yield grade, ribeye area, cab y or n, hard bone or not.
But since we sell live Tyson's position is that it is privileged information that we don't have clearance to see.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Just got off the phone with our buyer. They yielded 61%, 2 heavy carcasses, 2 prime, 3- yg4, 2- yg5. The 4s and 5s are the exact reason we sell live.

 

[GoWyo]

Outstanding.

 

[J+ Cattle]

Just got off the phone with our buyer. They yielded 61%, 2 heavy carcasses, 2 prime, 3- yg4, 2- yg5. The 4s and 5s are the exact reason we sell live.

So they were 20% prime and 50% YG4 & 5, the carcasses were on the large size so not knowing anything else about them, would you attribute the YG4 & 5 to the length of time on feed, the breed composition or what? The reason that I ask is because I associate the heavy YG4 & 5 carcasses as those that are more likely to grade prime, I was surprised you only had 20%.

 

[Silver]

We don't have the same grading system up here. Isn't YG 5 the lowest yielding carcass? If so I guess selling live would be an advantage over n the rail.

 

[Dave]

Here they only buy on the grid. The discounts for over sized carcass and yield grade 5 vastly out weigh the benefit from making prime.

 

[J+ Cattle]

Isn't YG 5 the lowest yielding carcass?

Yes, it can be lightly muscled or excessive amount of trim fat. In this case given the heavy weights I would think it's the amount of external fat that had to be trimmed.

 

[SBMF 2015]

I was

So they were 20% prime and 50% YG4 & 5, the carcasses were on the large size so not knowing anything else about them, would you attribute the YG4 & 5 to the length of time on feed, the breed composition or what? The reason that I ask is because I associate the heavy YG4 & 5 carcasses as those that are more likely to grade prime, I was surprised you only had 20%.

Surprised too. The last 10 were 40% prime, and only 1 yg4. That was 4 wks ago.
Lots of little factors add to how they graded.
Price - we held them a little longer because the mrkt had backed off $4.
Covid - they can't get enough healthy people to work at the plant, so those cattle were sold 3wks before they got delivered.
The big one, The Weather - when it gets around 40° the cattle really start putting on the growth. It's been dam cold since Christmas. Their eating more just to stay warm, but their kinda done growing. So they just put on more fat.
The yg5s should have been on the last load. It's a balancing act, we try to send the most finished cattle on each load. But some times their are cattle that are close to ready and have problems. They can only stand on slats so long before their legs start to give out. If they got put in the shed to young their joints will sometimes quit before their gone. The fastest way to get put on a load is to show any sign that they might have trouble walking in the next 30days.

 

[Silver]

but their kinda done growing. So they just put on more fat.

What breed were these cattle?

 

[J+ Cattle]

Surprised too. The last 10 were 40% prime, and only 1 yg4. That was 4 wks ago.

Was this load the same breed composition as the last load? That a big difference from 4 wks ago.

 

[SBMF 2015]

What breed were these cattle?

1 char x angus hfr, 2 char x angus strs. The rest were black hided, but probably had a % char somewhere in their back ground. I'm sure one of the char strs was a yg5. He was huge, probably 1,800.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Was this load the same breed composition as the last load? That a big difference from 4 wks ago.

Yeah for the most part. The last load was 1 char x hfr, 1char x str,and 8 Angus. 5 hfrs 5strs. Only 1 yg4, 4 prime, several CAB. It was probably the best load of cattle of the year.

 

[bird dog]

What does "heavy carcasses" mean?

 

[Dave]

The grid schedules I saw docked for both heavy and light carcass. That was listed as 500 and 900 pounds. A friend who retains ownership on 400-500 head said that Tyson (Pasco WA) docked for heavy but Washington Beef which is owned by Agribeef did not. One of the reason he has his cattle fed at an Agribeef feedlot. Agribeef ships a lot of animals to Tyson but they don't send over sized there according to my friend.

 

[J+ Cattle]

Carcass weight has a preferred range with around 800 lbs. being considered the sweet spot. When the carcasses get too heavy they get discounted, here is an example of a settlement sheet, different packers will have a different formula or weight at which they discount.

https://www.uspb.com/DocumentItem.aspx?ID=34

 

[SBMF 2015]

What does "heavy carcasses" mean?

Anything above 1,050lbs is considered a heavy carcass. The practical reasons why they don't want heavies is that they drag on the floor (anything that touches the floor must be trimmed) and they break the chains and rails.
What they tell us though is that heavy cattle don't "fit the box"

 

[SBMF 2015]

The grid schedules I saw docked for both heavy and light carcass. That was listed as 500 and 900 pounds. A friend who retains ownership on 400-500 head said that Tyson (Pasco WA) docked for heavy but Washington Beef which is owned by Agribeef did not. One of the reason he has his cattle fed at an Agribeef feedlot. Agribeef ships a lot of animals to Tyson but they don't send over sized there according to my friend.

I've seen Tyson sell several pot loads of fats at the sale barn before. They were all HEAVY, and ended up going to Wisconsin to be killed at a plant that handles Holsteins and bulls.

 

[Dave]

I've seen Tyson sell several pot loads of fats at the sale barn before. They were all HEAVY, and ended up going to Wisconsin to be killed at a plant that handles Holsteins and bulls.

Tyson in Pasco use to have a bar across the alley to the kill floor (might still have it). If a steers back touched that bar they sent it back to you. That return trip might involve a semi for a single steer. That originally happened when a lot of big tall Limo cattle were hitting the country. They were too long and tall to work on their chain.