Numbers appear shorter right now

I believe at least in our area the cattle numbers are shorter than some so-called experts believe. If you look at the number of cattle being sold at auction compared to previous years I think that tells part of the story.

I do think with feeders getting a lot higher several months ago that brought quite a few feeders to the sale or feedlots. Thus for the most part at the sale you see some feeders but more calves. I agree that this time of year this normally happens but I think there are less feeders available now than usual.

And I have said that before but with the cow packer being very aggressive on heavy bred cows to get the blood of that unborn calf for experimentation or one article said to add it to fake meat to make it taste like beef. I’m not positive on that last comment but it is possible.

I would guess there were 30 heavy bred cows that sold last Tuesday at my sale that went to slaughter to get the blood of unborn calf and then use meat of cow also.

We had 500 cows, bulls and calves Tuesday. And if 150 of those were medium to heavy bred then one-fifth of those eliminated a calf born next year and possibly fat ready for processing April 2023, or in a year and a half. And I am told the packer is doing that in every area that I have talked to.

Maybe it’s my suspicious nature but when the packer is making $1,000 per head he might be killing more cattle than he is reporting. It’s called greed on top of greed.

I hear right now there are some hearings going on in Washington about packer control and their monopoly. But if the right people are not holding them to the fire then it will merely be for show and they will come back with the same results as they did the last time with the fire in the Holcomb packing house in August 2019 and saying, “We couldn’t find anything.”

If you do not think those masks save lives than you are wrong. Yesterday a friend of mine went out with his girlfriend and on the way he passed his wife and she did not recognize him. That mask definitely saved his life.

I tried a new breakfast place the other day and was looking at the menu. When the waitress asked for my order, I said, “I will take a quickie.” She slapped me. An older woman next to me said, “It’s pronounced quiche, dear.”

Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.