rocfarm
Well-known member
Yeah. Weather (like I said). And the northwestern states are richer. Seems like California cattle are more expensive. I think some of the buyers come to Texas to buy bulls because of the discounts, it seems. Almost seems like those groups are so rich that the just want to pay the premiums for front pasture cattle.The southeast produces a lot of chickens that don't eat grass, but eat lots of corn and soybean meal their entire life. Lots of that feed shipped in by rail from the corn belt. Northwestern states are mostly ranked lower than southern states in corn production, but seem to see better prices on calves. Just seems to me that there is more to the story on prices for the southeast calves than distance from corn belt.
The chicken comparison doesn't work, I think, because of the hyper efficiency of that market. Pork either. I think it requires less transport to move feed to feed out a chicken than the equivalent weight in beef.
Proof of my points that is northern buyers come south to buy cattle to ship north to feed out before the weather turns. In other words, it's cheaper to move the cattle to the feed than to move the feed to the cattle. But of course this whole market is multifactorial. And decisions are based on current relationships between the factors.
And it's interesting to see the old timers describe how those factors have fluxed and changed over time.
Actually, if you guys would troll each other a bit less, lots of people could learn even more about how to get on the right side of things in their area. No shortage of expertise or experience here.