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cattle prices

cutterone

Well-known member
No wonder some of you guys out west are a little more upbeat about cattle prices.

Feeder Cattle: Buyers Aggressive, Price Levels Over Inflated

Compared to last week, feeder cattle and calves sold steady to 3.00 higher with instances as much as 6.00 higher, mostly on stocker steers weighing from 500-650 lbs. Buyers were aggressive, again this week, and seem completely unfazed by the flashing caution signs that warn price levels are way over inflated. Notions that feeder cattle supplies will be extremely tight this spring continue to drive demand with little regard for surging feed costs or the sluggish fed cattle market. Spring fever has often been known to cause cattle grazers to bid beyond their pencil, but we are only half way through February and most grass pastures remain frozen with many Midwestern fields are still covered with ice and snow. North of Interstate 70 (where old man winter’s grip has yet to weaken) 500 lb steers routinely yielded 130.00 this week.

Last Friday in Burwell, Nebraska, 152 head of fancy 548 lb black-hided steers brought 137.50.

They can hardly get out of the .80s and low .90s here.
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
Just got off the phone to a friend that buys lots of cattle. He was sure bullish. He says that may and june will set records. I sure hope he's right. That killer cow market is sure hot right now. Makes you wonder how high they'll be during that memorial day / July 4th time frame when people are grilling those holiday burgers.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
Our cull cows brought an average of 55.50 in Lemmon on Feb. 6
Some 1130 lb. cows brought 61 cents. The average price was $715 per head with the average weight being 1290 lbs.

It was a happy day.
 

joaker

Well-known member
with calves at $125/cwt and cost of gain at $100/cwt, one of three things has to happen, fats get real expensive, feed costs go into tank, or calve prices go into the tank. What's your money betting on?
 
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Anonymous

Guest
With projected $15-20 wheat prices for this summer/fall- and the current ethanol energy bill-I don't think you are going to see feed prices dropping...We've got folks running around up here all over the place trying to get you to seed and contract camelina- or the breweries looking for malting barley....And they are having to come up with some good prices to match what wheat is offering this year- especially when you can contract it today for $10+ a bushel...
Not unless they do some changes to the CRP program- and let folks buy out of that program- which all the greenie groups/hunting groups/bunny huggers will fight....


Breaking News from MoneyNews.com

Wheat Skyrockets as World’s Poor Trade Up

More evidence mounts that global inflation will soon soar even higher.

Wheat supplies, for which demand is skyrocketing, faces increasingly inadequate supply.

The cost of common wheat has climbed 50 percent since August and costs for the most sought-after varieties are even higher — as high as $17 a bushel. Common wheat for March delivery was trading over $10 a bushel and recently hit a nominal record of $11.53.

The inflation-adjusted record for wheat prices was $20 a bushel, set in the mid-1970s.

A commodity no one but growers usually spend time thinking about, wheat has a history of being both plentiful and cheap.

But droughts have lowered wheat supplies and U.S. stockpiles are at their lowest since 1948. High international grain prices have driven food shortages, hoarding and even riots in some parts of the world.

"Anyone who tells you they’ve seen something like this (before) is a liar,” says South Dakota trader Vince Boddicker.

As a result, the three United States exchanges that trade wheat futures contracts have since doubled their daily limits on price movements to 60 cents to accommodate trading fluctuations.

Unfortunately for farmers, most lack enough harvested wheat to benefit from recent price increases now. They sold crops their last fall for prices that sounded good then.

Prices are being driven in large part by strong economic growth in once-poor countries. Having more money has enabled people living there to develop a taste for the wheat products they were long unable to buy.

"We haven’t hit a price that has slowed the international interest,” commodity researcher Joe Victor told The New York Times. "That is something that definitely has the market excited.”

Traders and investors may feel anxious, but not the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It says the wheat shortage is temporary and that stockpiles will fall from 456 to 312 million bushels this year before rebounding to 700 million bushels by the end of the decade.

However, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization says that world wheat production will rise this year to nearly 664 million tons, up from just 655 million tons — far too little to replenish stores and lower prices.


Higher prices will encourage additional acreage and production, the Ag Department’s recent report optimistically forecast, with wheat plantings of 65 million acres in the 2008-2009 growing season.

That would be up from 60.4 million this year, but that number will fall due to competition from other crops.

Egypt, which recently put out an offer for a large wheat purchase, chose not to buy — presumably waiting for lower prices; Japan is reported to be bidding for 85,000 tons of American spring wheat.

"When the last person who has to buy in a market does so, you have a top,” Boddicker points out. "We’re quickly approaching that point, if we haven’t hit it already.”
 

Denny

Well-known member
I don't know what your feeding to get cost of gain at $1.00.Were feeding some calves here and the cost of gain on them is 42 cent per lb.All the feed is purchased.Close proximety to an ethanol plant helps quite a bit.
 

John SD

Well-known member
I kept my straight Hereford steer calves over to sell as yearlings. Trying to winter them to put on frame as cheaply as possible.

If they can do as well as last year's bunch I sold 10 weight steers in mid-Aug for $1000/hd. I don't think there is a lot of advantage to keeping them on grass much longer because the market got softer as the fall runs increased.

OT, you MT folks must be optimistic. I heard somewhere than MT herd rebuilding is going on to the tune of 8% increase over last year in cattle numbers! :wink:
 
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Anonymous

Guest
John SD said:
OT, you MT folks must be optimistic. I heard somewhere than MT herd rebuilding is going on to the tune of 8% increase over last year in cattle numbers! :wink:

Yeah I read someplace where Montana was leading all areas on herd expansion....I think a lot may be just catching up from years of drought-( I know even tho we had the rain last year- many didn't run to their full allotment to allow the pastures to recover) and hoping on a good year this year too....At least most the state has some snow cover all tho we have little up here- but have a lot of old grass left....

Hay and feed might get pricier around here too as more seed to wheat, camelina, malting barley, etc...Joe Goggins was up for a sale Thursday- and told one my neighbors they were paying over $100 Ton for hay in the southern part of the state.....
 

movin' on

Well-known member
I'm with Denny. Who's paying $1.00 a pound for gain?

I have a pen of my own calves in the feedyard and the cost of gain for them the first 80 days has been .65 cents a pound.

I realize that they are gaining very well and have had no sickness costs, but that's a long way from $1.00 a pound.
 

feeder

Well-known member
Wow on the low cost of gain. With yardage, feed cost and interest, our cog is pegged in at 90 cents. Yardage we figure at 30 cents. COG was running 65-75 cents through Jan. but the new cattle we have at 90 cents with $5 corn. Our hay is running 120-130/ton here.
 

Shorthornguy

Well-known member
400-600 feeders here were 55 to90 last week and moving higher. But here we are in a severe hay shortage due to drought. Buyer for a packer told me that we will have a cattle shortage by July-August of this year. Cost of gain will be too high and feedlots will be shipping ligher weights to avoid larger losses. We are facing a real world wide shortage of food.
Years ago a hillbilly moonshiner said " Well boys, do we drink it or put it in the gas tank" Now it will be " Do we make corn bread with it or do we sell it to the ethanol plant" :cry:
 

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