I have preached it and preached it and there are a few others that have too.
But if this last surge in beef prices with a decline in fat cattle hasn’t gotten your attention then you are either an idiot, have your head under a rock or you are working for the packer or retailer, or simply you are too afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation from the packer.
One of those four brackets pretty well should say where you stand. There are a handful of large producers who are also getting filthy rich. But there are a lot of medium-sized feedlots getting $1 per hundred more than what they quote as a top end and that should say band together and say enough is enough.
Last week Choice beef was quoted at $292.50 per hundredweight and Select at $279. If you figure half Choice and half Select with a yield of 63% that figure of $180.02 is what we should be getting for fats. That gives the packer $810 per head profit while we are losing money and the packer has the offal to more than pay the processing.
I challenge you to demand every county cattle organization, plus state organizations and national cattle organizations to not only say but show you what they are doing to bring awareness to this. If you see nothing than they are doing nothing. And if you have a kid that is not up to par the best way to get his attention is to cut off his money source.
So do the same if you see nothing. Cancel your membership.
We are at a do-or-die situation for cattlemen—wake up!
Two ole grumpy men from a retirement center were sitting on a bench under a tree. When Chester turned to Slim and said, “Slim, I’m 83 years old now and I am full of aches and pains.” He said, “Slim, I know you are about my same age. How do you feel?”
Slim says, “I just feel like a newborn baby.” Chester said, “Really? Like a newborn baby?”
Slim said, “Yep—no hair, no teeth and I think I just wet my pants.”
Editor’s note: Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
