Cattle people are an optimistic bunch!!

[justintime]

I was just wondering what is happening in other places in regards to commercial cow and bred heifer prices?  I'm a bit overwhelmed with the optimism cattle people are showing in these parts. We have alll heard of some crazy high prices in purebred sales all across North America, but usually once the super high prices are over, there has been some pretty good buying to be done in the same sales. IMO, it is your local commercial sales that tell the true story of the amount of optimism there is in the industry.
Yesterday I made a short stop at a bred cow sale at a local auction. There were more people in the seats than I have seen in probably a decade. Some pretty ordinary commercial range cows were bringing $1900- $2000. A few passed over the $2000 mark. Believe me , they were pretty ordinary cows and I wondered exactly how old some of them were. Not too far away, a college classmate of mine held a commercial bred heifer sale last week. I never saw the loffering but I expect they were solid females as this guy has always brought out good breeding stock. He sold 275 crossbred bred heifers in groups of 5 and 10 and averaged over $1900 on the sale. The top of $3100 per heifer was hit twice on two sets of 5 heifers. To me, that is a sign of great optimism in the industry ( or it could also be a sign of very short memories!!) I have had more inquiries for bulls in the past 60 days that ever before. I hope some of these guys are still looking when our bull sale comes next April.
There are still lots of cows heading to town for slaughter, so I dont think the sell off is over yet. After nearly a decade of tough market conditions particularly here in Canada, I think some people are cashing in while the cattle are worth something, and some others are still selling off to get their pile of bills paid down. In any event, it is exciting to see this kind of optimism in this business.  What are you seeing where you live?

 

[aj]

First....what is a "pretty ordinary commercial range cow"? Are there special commercial range cows?

 

[hevmando]

With all due respect, haven't they always been.  Feeders have always placed cattle betting on the come.

 

[jaimiediamond]

I was just wondering what is happening in other places in regards to commercial cow and bred heifer prices?  I'm a bit overwhelmed with the optimism cattle people are showing in these parts. We have alll heard of some crazy high prices in purebred sales all across North America, but usually once the super high prices are over, there has been some pretty good buying to be done in the same sales. IMO, it is your local commercial sales that tell the true story of the amount of optimism there is in the industry.
Yesterday I made a short stop at a bred cow sale at a local auction. There were more people in the seats than I have seen in probably a decade. Some pretty ordinary commercial range cows were bringing $1900- $2000. A few passed over the $2000 mark. Believe me , they were pretty ordinary cows and I wondered exactly how old some of them were. Not too far away, a college classmate of mine held a commercial bred heifer sale last week. I never saw the loffering but I expect they were solid females as this guy has always brought out good breeding stock. He sold 275 crossbred bred heifers in groups of 5 and 10 and averaged over $1900 on the sale. The top of $3100 per heifer was hit twice on two sets of 5 heifers. To me, that is a sign of great optimism in the industry ( or it could also be a sign of very short memories!!) I have had more inquiries for bulls in the past 60 days that ever before. I hope some of these guys are still looking when our bull sale comes next April.
There are still lots of cows heading to town for slaughter, so I dont think the sell off is over yet. After nearly a decade of tough market conditions particularly here in Canada, I think some people are cashing in while the cattle are worth something, and some others are still selling off to get their pile of bills paid down. In any event, it is exciting to see this kind of optimism in this business.  What are you seeing where you live?

In my current job I am seeing first hand the major changes in our cattle market.  The data is constantly collected, and the results are processed daily.  For the first time since the BSE boarder closure we have young people buying in as cattle are no longer a liability they are now projected as profitable. Moreover they are forecasted to go up even higher which would be a just reward for the guys that hung onto their cattle even when they were only getting a few cents a pound.

I posted this on another thread but I think it is better suited to JIT's topic. There recently was a sale of over 500 breds averaging $1725.00 these were commercial females ($862,500.00).  Angus, Red Angus, Gelbvieh, Charolais, and Hereford F1s.  350 open heifer calves averaged $1176.00  ($411,600.00).  I have pictured one of the commercial black Angus pens as a reference to the quality that averaged $1725.00

the rounded average for these commercial females is $1500.00 per head this is the first time since 2002 that the people in the Alberta cattle community are really excited and actually stand to make a profit with their programs

 

[justintime]

First....what is a "pretty ordinary commercial range cow"? Are there special commercial range cows?

Probably a poor choice of words on my part. The cows I saw sell that I called pretty ordinary range cows were cows that would be considered less than average quality for most commercial herds in these parts. I happened to know the herd from which these cows were being sold and I felt he was definitely not selling the best cows from the herd, even though it was advertised as a dispersal. There were over 200 cows in this herd dispersal, but I know there were over 1000 cows in this herd a couple years ago... which was another reason I thought they were not the top end cows.

 

[frostback]

JIT it really would not have mattered what words were used, a problem would have been found in any.

 

[rtmcc]

I was at the stock cow sale at Lanesboro sales in SE Minnesota. (Also our home town)  Standing room only crowd.  900 bred females in the sale.  The first 300 were fancy bred heifers, mostly in large groups, all blacks or reds.  They brought $1800 to $2450 in group and most of them staying local.  Good quality cows held in there pretty good all day between $1400 - $1850 with a few above.  i only got 4 head bought out of all the bred cows to go to kill, mainly due to temperament.  They sure could have sold more good ones.

Another 1000 head sale to sort through to morrow at Decorah Sales Commission 40 miles south in NE IA.  Some great strings of cows in that offering.

Great to see them staying local!

Ron
<cowboy>

 

[Aussie]

Cows and heifers selling very well here too. With some sales last week seeing heifers both on per head and per kilo basis selling above their steer siblings. Our herd is very much in a rebuild stage with cows selling between $1400 and $1800 and unjoined heifers to $950. Our fat market prices our still at winter rates (we are now in the first month of summer) and I am still finding it hard to source cattle to kill but the weather is now starting to warm and dry up so hopefully killing cattle with soon become more plentiful for me for work ( I buy off farms for a packer. Straight off grass to the slaughter house) but that will mean lower prices for farmers.

 

[aj]

I was going to say....if you can look at aged cows going through a ring....an know their fertility......their udder quality......the quality of their offsprings carcass.......and the amount of calves weaned over their tenure as a brood cow you are Jesus Christ. Or maybe they just needed some show feed and a haircut to be a high quality cow?

 

[JSchroeder]

Just wait till texas turns green again.

 

[RyanChandler]

The best breds around here might by 9.  I was at  the weekly sale Thursday in durant ok and there were some nice commercial cattle there.  Not 1 bred female brought a grand.  Young bred mid term cows even seemed to be discounted to the market price cwt.  I don't see the time when small to mid size cattle ops (around here))are spending 2k on commercial quality females.  I think its a bit bullish to assume Texas cattleman are gonna want these northern bred 1500lb cows.  I think that's one thing that gave red Angus in the area a bad name in the last few years.  The type they started bringing in were framey w/ long coats and unable to acclimate to the environment.  They starved to death while standing in the pond all summer.  Initially I think there is gonna be an influx of poor quality cattle from Mexico that will stock the pastures until there is enough consumer confidence to reinvest in high quality animals.  Those that think the people who sold out and pretty much depleted their liquidity in the process are going to immediately gamble 3x the animals salvage value to purchase a "replacement" need to step away from the pipe dream. 

 

[vanridge]

Always thought I was an optimist but maybe not! Feels like we are finally getting our heads above water but we're waiting for these (what we think are unsustainable) prices to come tumbling down. And when it goes down how far will it go? Are we gonna get hit again when things settle down? And were do guys get this money from to pay the high prices? Don't they have bills to pay and catch up on everything when the goin' was rough? Hope their optimism is well placed, than we're all in for a good run! <beer>

 

[aj]

Is there potential to bring in any funky new diseases from Mexico? Locally here we had 15 simi loads of okie and texas cows dumped out on cornstalks around here. Some of them were bought....others were just being baby sitted up here on stalks and will probably be sent back south in the spring. They are predicting one more drought year for Texas the way I understand it. Here in Northern Kansas we are right on the edge of the drought with talk it may move north this year.

 

[JSchroeder]

Chandler, if that was directed at me, I agree those big money commercial cows from the midwest won't become popular in Texas.  I would differ with you though in that I think there's going to be demand for the lower quality females from domestic sources before the Mexican trash.

 

[GONEWEST]

First....what is a "pretty ordinary commercial range cow"? Are there special commercial range cows?

Probably a poor choice of words on my part. The cows I saw sell that I called pretty ordinary range cows were cows that would be considered less than average quality for most commercial herds in these parts. I happened to know the herd from which these cows were being sold and I felt he was definitely not selling the best cows from the herd, even though it was advertised as a dispersal. There were over 200 cows in this herd dispersal, but I know there were over 1000 cows in this herd a couple years ago... which was another reason I thought they were not the top end cows.

I wish I had your graciousness Grant. It's something I will work on.

 

[aj]

Chandler....I think has a good point. People I know who sold out and then tried to buy back in have one HELL of time getting it by their banker. Around here there are a couple of feedlot guys that have the feed and they have the line of credit to speculate with buying the cows and hoping to sell them at a profit. But if southern drought continues I don't know what the hell will happen.