I can remember getting 15-18 cents for good slaughter cows and 30 cents for top bulls. That put common slaughter cows at around a dime and common bulls under a quarter. I can remember weaning age calves--400 lbs back then, at 18 cents for heifers and 22 cents for steers. Early 90's, I got 45 cents for 500 lb heifers and 50 cents for steers. I remember in the drought disaster of the early 80's getting 300 dollars for the top cow calf pairs. In the mid 70's calves shot up over a dollar and I had a neighbor who was offered 95 cents for his 7 wt holstein steers. He said, "I am going to hold until I get a dollar" The market crashed, he sold them at the end of the summer for 25 cents per pound. A sale at Harrison, Ar yesterday they had 2 herds of black cows---200 in one herd and 130 in the other. Both herds were very common cows. Good age pairs 1750-1975. Old pairs 1300-1500. 2nd and 3rd period good age, 1500-1700 and old 1200-1500. These were just 900-1100 lb cows, small calves and below avg quality. I took in a dozen old, really ancient cows that were big hereford holstein crosses suckled down to skin and bones for a neighbor. A couple got down getting out of the trailer and almost didn't get up, also one had cancer eye and was bleeding. They weighed 1184 average and brought avg of 72 1/2 cents per pound. That was incredible.
