We got rain and even the gripey cattlemen are smiling. A few people only received a half an inch but most received 1 to 2 inches with a few spots getting 3 to 5 inches of rain.
It will not be a cure-all because a lot of grass looked like the dead of winter before. The rain must have covered a big enough area that the cow- and bull-packer buyers went from mediocre to aggressive in a week’s time. Some cows would be $12 per hundredweight and bulls a lot higher, too. Even the medium- to heavy-bred cows are mostly going to slaughter, too.
We need more rain to follow this moisture but looking at the forecast it doesn’t show much in sight. But we often get a better chance for moisture when forecasters predict 10 to 20% than we do when they say 70 to 80%.
With all the dry weather when farmers were harvesting wheat or triticale or rye it is hard to find seed for this year to plant. And if you do find it then the thought of summer fallow comes to mind.
Some of the calves seem like they are bringing a good price but with May feeder futures being $190 they might not be as high as they seem. Hay is another item that most feedlots, farmers, and ranchers are very concerned about. I had a customer call from Houston, Texas, asking me if we had enough hay at the sale barn. I told him we did for now. He said in his area there is no hay.
We have a table of coffee drinkers that come to the sale barn cafe and today they were still in there when the sale was over. I had ordered some food and dropped my fork. So like any ole cowboy would do, I picked it up and wiped it off with my shirt. And, yes, I picked the cleanest spot on my shirt. Several of the coffee drinkers said, “You aren’t going to use that fork, are you?” I said, “Yes, I swallow more cattle manure blowing in the air going down the alley than you could possible put on that fork.” And I added, “What I don’t get down the alley I easily get enough of all your alls table.”
So one of the guys said, “Then you are saying we shouldn’t get sick either.” Most of those guys are pretty fleshy. So I said, “Well, I’d say you all look pretty healthy.”
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.
