prices

[rancher]

Summary Table State Volume Steers Heifers
Calf Weight 500-550 lb. 600-650 lb. 700-750 lb. 500-550 lb. 600-650 lb. 700-750 lb.
OK 36,400 $136.03 $125.95 $116.02 $124.43 $114.44 $107.63
TX 28,500 $127.28 $120.76 $112.49 $123.69 $112.93 $109.25
MO 27,600 $141.37 $130.11 $118.10 $126.61 $122.00 $109.55
KY* 19,800 $123-133 $110-1203 $103-1155 $106-1161 $100-1103 $91-1015
Dakotas 15,000 $141.24 $134.55 $122.57 $131.57 $122.21 $114.35
KS 13,100 $144.42 $133.07 $117.73 $130.09 $120.18 $108.56
NE 9,400 $145.84 $132.58 $120.08 $135.38 $126.84 $112.16
AL 8,400 $125-132 $113-122 $103-112 $119-130 $110-116 $97-106
GA* 7,600 $115-135 $105-123 $97-113 $107-125 $97-120 $95-98
AR 7,500 $132.70 $119.55 $108.10 $123.21 $112.27 $104.46
TN* 7,300 $129.18 $116.35 $108.10 $119.48 $108.88 $100.25
MS* 6,600 $115-1301 $102-1153 $80-955 $110-1201 $97-1103 $88-995
Carolinas* 6,400 $115-130 $107-1193 $94-1105 $108-122 $96-1133 $86-1015
FL* 6,000 $112-128 $105-122 $101-1164 $106-122 $101-110 **
WY 4,700 $157.32 $134.48 $122.40 $134.34 $124.93 $109.84
LA* 3,900 $123-133 $117-1242 ** $117-122 $110-1172 **
IA 3,600 $136.92 $130.88 ** $128.13 $128.80 $114.30
CO 3,500 $147.71 $122.22 $114.62 $140.71 $130.212 $105.63
VA 2,700 $140.68 $125.69 $114.62 $118.77 $110.93 $113.054
NM 2,600 $133.36 $118.10 $112.476 $119.67 $111.10 $113.414
MT 2,300 $144.01 ** ** $137.56 $124.95 **
WA* 2,300 $126.522 $121.624 ** $113.382 $112.84 **

 

[Border rancher]

Hi, I've been browsing these forums for a few weeks now, but this is my first attempt at posting a reply. First, I have lived on the same Alberta ranch for all of my nearly 60 years, the first 18 years as a child with my parents and the last 42 years with my husband, so even the most sceptical of you must agree that I know a little of what I speak.
One thing that I find puzzling is, as I read your list of prices here and I look at the prices we got for our yearlings in Lethbridge, Ab. just 2 weeks ago, I see only a few cents difference and of course the exchange rate on the money. Our animals did top the sale as they have for years, not bragging, just stating a fact. We had a small group of 13 fall calved strs, weighed 408 pounds, brought 1.40/lb.; 27 head strs av 528 brought 122.75, so you get an idea of the prices. I know it is virtually impossible for comparison as all cattle are of different quality in all wt. ranges. WHO IS BUYING THESE CATTLE FOR THESE PRICES? Someone somewhere has more optimism than most Canadian producers have money so it has to be the Americans! If it is the dreaded R-Calf members that I read about so often in these forums, Thank You! All I know is that someone gave the buyers the orders and I am not in a financial position at present to care who they are. Thanks again for the $30,000+ extra dollars that our 283 yearlings brought that day. Maybe someday if we are still in this business when things get back to the way they were, I will be able to care...but not now!

 

[Shelly]

Well, by my calculations, that's only over a $100 a head. You either made the $ amount wrong or the number of head you sold. Otherwise.....and you're happy with that???

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Border rancher you had a good sale considering ,. but you steers that brought $648 Canadian. In Montana they would have brought $990 Canadian.

So you see we are at a big disadvantage. Only R-CALFs friends the big packers are making the money.

 

[Border rancher]

Hi again, Yes we are happy because that $100.00 extra was an unexpected gift. Our banker even smiled just a little when I took the check in to deposit! I had figured out what we should expect, about 550 average. When the out come was more than we could have dreamed we were satisfied. No, it's not enough when every input cost has risen every time we need something in town. No, it's not enough if we value ourselves at all, all the hard work that you all know goes into these animals to raise them from conception until they are sold. You all know about that! It's not enough when our cull bulls bring 14 cents a pound, and to replace 6 this spring cost us $15,000. It's not enough when we sold the mommies of our fall calves at the same auction a week after the calf sale for an average of $226.00. They were culls that we had kept and bred, waiting for the price to go up ever since May 2003. Herds can't grow and grow, there is only so much grass, even if we have a good year. At one time, we kept culls in confinement, weaned them early, sold the cows, had the calves for free. At $85/T hay hauled in to our remote location each cow would eat up her $226.00 in just a short time. (We also had 6 old enough and sickly looking enough to have BSE tested. They were all negative, and the gov. in it's own time , will send us $225.00 a head for animals that were worth nothing BEFORE BSE.)
But you all know, too, that to be in the cattle business requires one to be an eternal optimist, always pinning hopes on tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. I"m certain that in time a few of us will be left to enjoy the spoils when this thing gets sorted out, maybe not my husband and I, as our working years are limited by age, but younger ranchers if they are not extinct by then.
I know we would have had twice as much money if we could have sold in Montana, but if we could have figured out how to do that we probably could have spent most of the rest of our lives in jail. We have good friends just south of us who are enjoying those prices now, and I don't blame them for that. It's their turn. I know too, that even though I am sure some of them are R Calf supporters, they greet me with a hug and some with tears glistening in their eyes when we meet at our nearby Montana post office. Everything takes on a new look when you are face to face with the suffering party!
Enough rambling, it'e 6 AM and time for the Great Falls news. I will take my blood pressure meds to lessen the chance of having a stroke and see what they have to say today. I'm sure Canada did something wrong, probably sent them bad weather again!

 

[Clarence]

Border Rancher:
Keep posting, I like your posts, I think you are my kind of a person. what we need is more people with your optimisiom. After follow these post for a long time, I am not surprised that someone would throw a wet blanket on what you say.

I don't know if your prices are all that far from ours, not considering the exchange rate. I recently sold a few head here. Average wieght was 707# net $808 per head. They sold for from $107 to $135 per hundred weight.

I live a long way from the Canadian border, so it is hard for me to accept that we have a North American cow herd, but hope we can get this thing worked out. It would seem to me that as long as more and more Canadian boxed beef is comming south, sooner or later prices will even out. It looks to me that if Canada can feed more of their own grain, and slaughter and process more of their own cattle, there are good things coming for you.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Clarence you are right about Canada feeding more of it's own and processing more ,that's the ideal. But when it happened so suddenly we were caught without our own proceessors as we were integrated with the US to the point where we were producing cattle for US plants. If we could handle all the cattle we produce in our own proccessing plants with competition we wouldn't have to ship live cattle.

 

[Border rancher]

Hello all, Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms!
I think it is wonderful that we will be able to process our own beef in Canada. BUT, I, like government and investors am very worried about what will happen when the US border does open. Will our shiney, new packing plants be able to compete with the well established US plants? With them I include the 2 big ones here in Alberta, Tyson Foods in Brooks and the Cargill plant in High River.
What if the US plants outbid the new plants at every turn. How will they be paid for then? Canadian cattle producers will not be able to be noble and sell only to Canadian packers. THEY ARE BROKE, THE BANKERS WILL BE SNAPPING AT THEIR HEELS, THEY WILL HAVE TO SELL WHERE THEY CAN GET THE BEST PRICE.
Maybe another government subsidy (bad word, I know) will sweeten the pot and give us reason to use the new plants, I don't know. What do you think?

 

[Silver]

I think maybe the border ought to stay just like it is. If we stay afloat long enough, the results will be worth it..... imho