Fat cattle trade improves; encourages us all to eat beef
I assume none of you ate turkey for this past Thanksgiving holiday but instead are eating beef.
Fat cattle trade last week topped at $135 per hundredweight, which is finally better. However, the same old record of Choice being $278.41 and Select at $263.83. They will grade better than 50% Choice but even figuring it at 50% the packer is still making $538.82 and they also get all the offal. At least our fat cattle are worth more but let’s not lose sight of the fact the packer is still “stealing” our product.
And I wonder how long does it take the Department of Justice to respond as to whether we are getting cheated that it actually is a monopoly.
December live cattle futures are at the highest level since Sept. 2. The cattle harvesting came in at a high level this past week at 677,000 head. Cattle on feed numbers showed 99.9% with placements at 102% and marketings at 95%. Maybe I am wrong but I wouldn’t have thought we were placing more cattle in the feedlot and long weaned yearling cattle are very few in numbers. So if they are placing that many it must be with big calves and I wouldn’t think that number would be higher than normal. But it is easy to look at your own area and think the whole world is that way.
It seems like we had more drought areas than normal. They say we almost always have at least one drought area.
Feeder cattle prices have been good. On Nov. 18 we sold two groups of 887- to 899-pound heifers that were guaranteed open that brought $140 to $143.50. Those heifers were more than likely heifers that didn’t breed, which is a pretty good price for those $1,276. Not bad.
I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 62 years later. I don’t have to go to school or work. I get an allowance every month. I have my own pad. I don’t have a curfew. I have a driver’s license and my own car. The people I hang around with are not scared of getting pregnant and I don’t have acne. Life is great. I changed my car horn to gunshot sounds. People get out of the way much faster now.
Gone are the days when girls used to cook like their mothers. Now they drink like their fathers. I didn’t make it make it to the gym today. That makes five years in a row. I quit calling the bathroom a “John” and renamed it the “Jim.” I feel so much better saying that I went to the Jim. I used think nap time was a punishment. Now it is like a vacation.
The biggest lie I told myself, “If I don’t write it down I’ll remember it.” If God wanted me to touch my toes he would have put them on my knees.
And why do I press English when you’re going to transfer me to someone I cannot understand. At my age getting lucky is find the bathroom and remembering why. Now I’m wondering did I send this to you? Or did you send it to me”?
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.
