Bull and cow prices crash

[elkwc]

Around here bull prices are off 15-20 dollars from last week. We sold 2 young bulls yesterday. Wish we had kept them and sold them to someone for hamburger. They have been getting cake everyday along with wheat. Were fat. Could of fed them a few weeks waiting on a butcher date and they would of been great hamburger. We have done several that way. Cows are down several dollars from Friday. At the sale yesterday I would say 8-10 dollars.

good luck on a few weeks for butcher appointment. 3 months here, and that was before it was announced that another company was closing.

I can get an appointment here in usually 2-4 weeks.

 

[Dave]

At Intermountain Livestock today kill cows were $0.58 to $0.64. A few 2 year olds brought 70 cents. And of course shelly cows were cheaper. I didn't stick around to watch the bulls sell. They had nearly 60 broken mouth pairs with 150 pound calves. They brought $1,200 a head in groups of 10 to 14. At that price I had my hands buried deep in my pockets. Very few feeder cattle. I bought 5 steers that were pretty green and framey that weighed 557 pounds. 3 blacks and 2 char crosses. Paid $1.39.

 

[Stocker Steve]

My crystal ball is that burger animals are lower risk than feeders. Flat muscled cows were 50 cents here this week.
My crystal ball is that heifers are lower risk than steers. Seven wt. heifers were $1.20 here this week.
Seems like we should be hard cull'in in April, May, June, July, and August. Then go hunting for a couple months. :cowboy:

 

[farmerjan]

Dave, that was a decent price for the steers. They ought to gain good for you. You're right, those cow/cf pairs were way too high if they were basically all one and dones.....

Guy that has worked for us off and on since school is now a grader part-time, at a few of the livestock markets. He said that when he went to the one sale he does every week, the cull cows were from .60 to .75 that morning, and when the news of the plant shutting down in Pa (old taylor plant now owned by JBS) the price on the culls dropped to .35 to .45...... They had to honor the ones that were there earlier, the culls don't go through the ring at this sale, they are weighed and "graded" (cutters, boners, etc.) and the sellers paid accordingly..... can you imagine someone taking a load in at 6 a.m. and then coming back with another load at 11 a.m., and the difference in the prices????? But, this is mostly going to affect us here in the east as this plant takes ALOT of cattle from these eastern markets and does some of everything. Va, Pa, Md, NY, and surrounding areas. No suggestions of when it might re-open either.... Since Pa and NY are seeing a fast rise in the C-virus cases, that is probably going to be a direct influence.

Also, diesel prices here have been dropping and we paid 1.99 for on road diesel the other day. Plus, it is 50 cetane which is better than the 40 cetane that most are, and we feel that the trucks run better on it too. I told my son that he needed to get the tank cleaned out, it has some old fuel in the bottom, and get a load while the Saudis and Russia are having a pissing contest and not wanting to cut production. Well, they announced this morning that they have agreed to cut production and the price of oil (barrel) here in the US went up nearly 20%.... I had ordered my fuel tank here at the house to get filled, so I will be okay..... I sure hope that he got the tank cleaned out and the diesel for it ordered. They change their price once a week on Monday usually. It will be interesting to see what the prices are going to do tomorrow at the stock yard. I won't be able to go because of regs..... I do have to go see about paying on my feed bill, and see if one of the guys can get the feed bin cleaned out so I can get a load of poultry feed so that when I get the next bunch of meat birds, I will have the feed already there.

Saw a list just recently that the number of replacement heifers is still dropping as they are still putting more on feed than keeping back, so that the consensus is that the prices ought to improve in the 2021-22 years. Of course, who knows with this C-virus mess.

 

[Dave]

Dave, that was a decent price for the steers. They ought to gain good for you. You're right, those cow/cf pairs were way too high if they were basically all one and dones.....

That is a good 30 cents off what those steers would have brought a month ago. This morning we weighed up and sent off 4 semi loads and 2 goose neck loads that these steers will fit right in with. They went to a feed yard for just a couple weeks until grass comes on. The feed yard is close enough to a big pasture neighbor B has rented that we can just drive them to the pasture. In the mean time it frees up some room around his place and some time that is being spent feeding every morning.

The cows looked pretty good. They will probably make it for a few years. But that is not our plan. There was 3 smooth mouth cows with calves that brought $900 a head. But the calves were mighty young and the cows not all that big. I passed on them too. I might have given $1,000 for the broken mouth cows and $700 for the smooth mouth ones.

 

[Nesikep]

Saw a list just recently that the number of replacement heifers is still dropping as they are still putting more on feed than keeping back, so that the consensus is that the prices ought to improve in the 2021-22 years. Of course, who knows with this C-virus mess.

I'm flooded with heifers this year, currently 13 heifers and 6 bulls, 3 to go... I will have a decent selection, and unless someone wants them for breeding (a friend has thrown the idea around), I might keep more than I need and cull hard the following year

 

[Ky cowboy]

Seen pound cows at .80 here Saturday was told they will do .90 this Saturday, nobody ever knows

I hauled a pathetic 1st calf heifer and her calf monday. The heifer only weighed 580 and brought .76. She wasnt that poor just very small framed. Calf weighed 3ish and brought 1.76. I was happy

 

[dieselbeef]

things are pretty good here...


http://www.arcadiastockyard.com/current-price-trends/

 

[hornedfrogbbq]

Seen pound cows at .80 here Saturday was told they will do .90 this Saturday, nobody ever knows

I hauled a pathetic 1st calf heifer and her calf monday. The heifer only weighed 580 and brought .76. She wasnt that poor just very small framed. Calf weighed 3ish and brought 1.76. I was happy

You have a 580lb heifer with a calf? Tell me that is a typo.

 

[MO-Ruminants]

Made four butcher appointments for this summer. There is demand for grass fed burger, and we don't mess with reluctant mothers. Life is too short.

Where is your demand for grass fed burger, and how long must a cow be on grass to call it grass fed.

Your cows are likely always on grass, but referring to buying other cows of unknown origins and putting them on my grass.

 

[Stocker Steve]

"Grass Fed" is not regulated, and each brand has its own rules, often requiring no grain from birth.

We usually butcher fat young cows off pasture in late summer.

Consumers are usually very health conscious, and know about omega 3 vs. omega 6 fats.

 

[Ky cowboy]

Seen pound cows at .80 here Saturday was told they will do .90 this Saturday, nobody ever knows

I hauled a pathetic 1st calf heifer and her calf monday. The heifer only weighed 580 and brought .76. She wasnt that poor just very small framed. Calf weighed 3ish and brought 1.76. I was happy

You have a 580lb heifer with a calf? Tell me that is a typo.

I wish it was a typo. She was a 3 yr old I bought in a package deal

 

[hornedfrogbbq]

It seems to me that the cattle prices improved as more Senators and folks in Congress starting making noise about their margins versus the voters/ranchers/cattle folks margins. Suddenly there is a bump in fat cattle sales prices when multiple plants are being shut? Ummm, that sounds like a duopoly paying a bit more so they don't get investigated.

If you can weather this storm for the next 6-18 months, it seems like there is now and will be in the next 9 months, a herd reduction. That should be helpful out a year or two but getting between now and then could be very difficult. Add in the virus issues and oil and gas at production loss pricing and we think you see big time herd liquidations.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Dairy herds will cull down.
Beef herds will cull down.
Let them eat burger.