For some odd reasons, the bred cows and pairs have lost their luster the greener the pastures get. There was more demand at higher prices and for smaller cows when the dust was blowing and getting a rain was a big uncertainty. Now that we’ve had ample moisture, grass is lush, there are bales of hay lying around, and the forecasts all call for rain, and nobody wants to buy a pair!

The surprising thing though is that there seems to be plenty of cows and calves available for sale! The grasslands in eastern Colorado and New Mexico have never looked better, the grass is growing fast and strong in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, and it looks like everybody and their brother is going to lay down some wheat to make feed. Yet, there are big runs of cows and several pairs around the country. It would seem that we already moved all the cows due to drought in the last several years, and with grass growing, folks would hang on to them. But, the cow market has come up about $10.00, which makes those older cows worth a little more in town than just eating grass at home.

It still looks like possession of those cows and calves is a good thing. The futures board is showing feeders above $100.00 about all the way across, and if everybody would get done with harvest, there ought to be excellent demand for stocker cattle. The market is pretty good for calves even now, but that’s with people in the fields, and lots of calves moving out of the southeast which is now experiencing a severe drought. In the last 10 years, that drought has moved clear across the United States, and hopefully will be done with us!

Input costs for every part of agriculture continue to be extremely high. One bright spot, if you can call it that, is diesel fuel is finally cheaper than gas! Feed costs at the feedyards is also still plenty high, with cost of gains running from $.75 to$1.00. Who knows what a feeder steer might be worth if the cost of gain was in the forties with fat prices in the nineties?

WE WILL BE OPEN NEXT TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2007!

WE WILL BE CLOSED ON TUESDAY, JUNE 12!

OUR NEXT VIDEO SALE IS TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2007 AT 8:00 AM!

Looking forward to a great summer! Thank You to all of our customers!

It looks like there would be some incentive to buy some solid mouth pairs for $900.00 instead of letting them be split apart for $1100.00! The ponds are full, the grass is green and growing, there is rain in the forecast for the next week, and the market is great. That doesn’t include the fact that a pair does not take near as much time and effort as weaning and doctoring a bunch of newly weaned calves! Even though everything has to be gotten ready for harvest, a pair just needs kicked out, and the combines can still be greased!

Are pairs too high? Let’s see, we have newborn calves bringing over $100.00, bigger calves bringing up to $650.00, and big yearlings bringing $900.00. So, if a cow lives to be ten years old, and produces a calf every year, we have an opportunity to make between $1000.00 and $9000.00 from that cow in 10 years. If a young pair costs $1500.00, the only way to lose money on her is to sell the calf every year the day it’s born!

The overall market looks very good! Calves are selling well, yearlings are selling well, and fat cattle are still bringing in the $90.00’s! The CME is going to let fat steers start weighing 1425 pounds for delivery pretty soon. That’s another 100 pounds the feedyards will be allowed to put on the cattle, which will be just one more incentive to make them bigger than they already are. So who is leading whom?

Ten years ago or so, packers told the feedyards that cattle weighing over 1300 would be discounted because they didn’t fit the box or were too big for the kill floor. Now they’re going to take delivery on cattle that average 1425 lbs? That means there will be cattle weighing anywhere from 1000 lbs up to 1500 or 1600 pounds! Apparently, the boxes got a lot bigger and so did the kill floors, or it’s all just a game.

We have over 6 billion people in the world to feed, and less cattle in the United States than we did 50 years ago, so maybe bigger cattle will be able to supply more beef. One thing is for sure, demand for beef is going to get bigger just by sheer numbers of people to feed! The cattle industry at the moment is in a demand driven market instead of a supply driven market. It sure looks like those cows and calves are an opportunity!

WE WILL BE OPEN NEXT WEEK, MAY 29, 2007
NEXT MONTHLY COW SALE WILL BE JUNE 26, 2007

We should probably enjoy these cooler days as much as possible, because summer is not very far away, and there is no guarantee that it will rain every week. Even with a lot of hay being laid on the ground, there will still be some days of warm weather and sunshine! It appears like there will be a lot of hay saved this year, which it needs to be. The tons of hay per acre might be a lot better to receive than bushels per acre this year.

There still seems to be some discrepancy between steers and heifers. Six and seven weight steers are bringing from $110.00 to $120.00, or better, while the same weight of heifers are only bringing $100.00 to $110.00. That’s $50.00 to $75.00 a head difference, yet when they become fat they all bring the same! With today’s genetics, a person would think that the heifers would be gaining along the same lines as the steers. Not to mention the fact that heifers generally will bet fatter faster than a steer, thereby saving money and feed!

Whatever happened to prime grading cattle? It seems like even though cattle are fed an extra twenty or thirty days, if not more, the grading on our cattle is still only 52 percent choice. Where are the so called “better” cattle? It’s becoming more and more difficult to find good meat in the grocery stores, and the big stores, or their suppliers, keep adding water to the meat. How is that legal? What comes around goes around.

BIG DAY COMING NEXT TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007!
Outstanding selection of calves, yearlings, cows and pairs next week!

S & R Farms 25 Blk/bwf 1st calf pairs, calves out of reg. Ang bulls
100 Blk/red bred cows/pairs, 2-10 yrs, Ang & Char sired
Middle Creek Ranch 45 Blk/Bwf cows, bred to Angus bulls, 5-10 yrs
Edwards Ranch 50 Blk/Bwf pairs, 3-8 yrs old
April Lorenz 2 Reg. Char bulls, coming 3yrs, out of Wyoming Wind
Jeb Lamle 2 Angus/Maine bulls, coming 3 yrs, out of Maintainer
J & S Cattle 8 Red Angus bulls, coming 2 yrs, out of registered stock

Dildine Ranch 200 Angus sired strs/hfrs, off grass, 650-800 lbs, off grass
White Cattle Co 75 Ang/Limx hfrs, off grass, gtd open, 650-700 lbs
Joe Kregar 50 Beefmaster/Ang strs, off wheat, 800-900 lbs

The calf market has been a little fickle lately. Before all the rain came, calves were easily bringing $130.00, but when the rain finally got here, only a few calves were bringing that kind of money. Maybe it’s easier to handle them in the dust rather than the mud. It’s still a great market though, and probably going to get better!

Isn’t it amazing how it doesn’t rain very much until you get the hay on the ground? There have been several fields laid down for hay, only to sit there staying wet instead of drying out! But at least we have the moisture now and we still need to replenish our feed supplies. Hopefully this year everyone will be able to stack enough hay to make up for all that was fed last year!

There has sure been a lot of sex discrimination in the cattle industry lately. For ever, a heifer calf has been several dollars a hundred behind a steer, but eventually a feeder heifer was maybe $3.00 back while a fat heifer brought the same. Recently though the feeder heifers have been as much as $10.00 or $12.00 back of the steer, and maybe more than that behind the futures board. Time after time we’ve seen seven weight steers bringing $110.00 to $120.00, while the heifer mates only brought $100.00! If someone wanted to feed cattle, it sure looks like a lot better business plan to feed heifers than steers!

Even with all the rain recently, there are quite a few pairs and bred cows coming to town! The market has been good for them, but so are the opportunities! You can only sell a calf if you have the cow! There is yet to be a herd buildup in the U.S. and there are going to be many opportunities coming up!

COMING NEXT TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2007:
T & R White 200 Ang/Lim/Charx steers, weaned, off grass, vaccinated, 400-600lbs
JB Cattle Co 150 Angus sired heifers, off wheat, gtd open, 700-800 lbs

OUR NEXT COW SALE WILL BE TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007!

With Memorial Day and harvest right around the corner, our May monthly cow sale will be one week early! Please call ahead to make plans! We’re looking forward to serving you! Thanks again to all of our buyers and sellers!

Isn’t it ironic that we can pray for rain all year, but it really doesn’t start staying around until folks are trying to bale hay? There appears to be a good number of fields that are going to be cut for hay this year. Since 2000, there has been a tremendous amount of reserve hay used up, and not much, if any, new hay to replace it. This past year forced a lot of folks to use up quite a bit of their reserves, even after selling calves early and reducing cow numbers!

It does not look like the U.S. herd is building up yet. Just in the last few weeks, let alone the last 12 months, there have been a lot of cows selling, and last months on feed report showed more heifers in the feedyards than last year! Here lately, there has sure been a lot of older pairs showing up, which are probably last falls bred cows that sold. However, there are also quite a few young pairs coming to town! They are bringing excellent money too!

What is the difference between a black calf from a red cow and a black calf from a black cow? They both bring the same at market, they both feed in the same pen, and they both get looked at for “angus” beef! Yet, their mothers might sell for $200.00 or more difference! It sure looks like there is a lot of money to be made by owning the red cows! That savings would sure help buy a better bull!

Whatever wheat run there is will probably happen here in the next 10 days. The cooler than normal weather has let the cattle pretty much get ahead of the wheat and it looks like it’s time to move. Wheat pasture numbers in Oklahoma have been pretty low this year, and these next few days will probably be the last hoorah for buying feeder cattle! Hopefully, the rains will continue to come, and we’ll all have some grass to utilize this summer.

COMING NEXT TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2008:

1000 Angus sired strs & hfrs, off wheat, gtd open, no implants, 650-900 lb
100 Ang/Char/Limox strs, off grass & wheat, vacc. boostered, 400-600 lbs

Don’t forget the internet! www.cattleusa.com
There are over 30 auctions broadcasting live!
Next video auction coming up May 22, 2007!

Thank You!