Sort & Cull

I know these days are painful. I know these days are daunting and costly and stressful. But I urge you, to the best of your ability, resist emotional kneejerk reactions and try to sort out your business in a level-headed manner. I would begin by assessing all your options and...

If the market currently has 11,304,000 head of cattle on feed, which is 1% more than what the market had on feed a year ago, then why are packers having to pay more money for cash cattle right now?

Packer have drastically cut chain speeds to try to keep the cash cattle market from rallying and to hopefully add some support to boxed beef prices, but with today's cattle possessing heavier carcass weights than a year ago, feedlots could see some supply pressures later...

Boxed beef prices and fed cash cattle prices endured some pressure last week, but the feeder cattle market continues to trade with immense demand.

Both Superior Livestock Auction and Western Video Market are hosting sales early this week and even though the board closed lower Monday afternoon, feeder cattle demand was hot.

The market will be closed on Thursday for the Fourth of July holiday, but normal trade will resume on Friday and it's likely that the weekly cash cattle trade could wait to develop until that point as feedlot managers again aim for higher prices.

Given that Friday's Cattle on Feed Report was bearish, everyone expected Monday's market to be tough for the cattle complex, but thankfully traders found confidence in the market's strong fundamentals.

Both the cash cattle and feeder cattle markets saw prices shoot higher last week as excellent demand amid such short supplies continues to drive prices higher.

Thus far in 2024, the market processed an average of 57,106 head of beef cows a week, which is considerably lower given the fact that in recent years the industry has seen mass liquidation. To date, in 2023, weekly cow slaughter averaged 67,226 head and in 2022 averaged...

Will allowing contracts to trade in a wider range help protect producers and mitigate market risk?

Seasonal demand may have been slow to surface, but last week, choice cuts averaged $9.96 higher than the previous week as consumers are ready for the grilling season!

Outside of the week ended March 24, 2024, when packers bought 98,759 head in the spot cash market, the last three consecutive weeks have seen the biggest volumes of cash cattle sales thus far in 2024.

The market has been full of challenges over the last six weeks, but between improved chain speeds and stronger cash cattle sales some fundamental improvements have taken place as well.

Farmers and ranchers are always looking for the right organization to belong to who will support them as a member. The Iowa Cattlemen's Association and Iowa Farm Bureau recently showed what they are doing for their members through work at the Iowa Capitol.

Pre-report estimates forecast placements to be anywhere from 90.0% to 94.7% of a year ago, so when the report showed placements in March were actually 88% -- cattlemen and traders alike were slightly taken back.

The market could decide to change direction, but the support plane of $172 is a critical focal point and worthy to note regardless of which way the market trades.

If you live in an area of total or even partial solar eclipse on Monday, whether it's sunny or cloudy, here's your chance to observe and record how the eclipse affects livestock, poultry, pet and wildlife behavior. You can answer a university survey that will help collect...

The difficult thing about situations like these is that until disease specialists have the time they need to run the tests necessary to better understand this flu variant, panic and fear fly as everyone in the market wants to be ahead of the story as opposed to behind...

One would like to think that the market would take bullish news and run with it. But when you study both the live cattle and feeder cattle market's charts, it's hard to demand that the market do much more when historically speaking the market is trading at its highest...

Given the snowstorms that crippled transportation, weekly sale barn auctions and consequently hindered feeder cattle placements in January, it should be common knowledge there were higher