Our cow sale was the smallest sale we have had in a lot of years only selling 175 head. The little snow of 2 or 3 inches that fell Tuesday morning might have slowed up a few but it was a very pretty day the day before.
My thinking overall is our cow numbers will get very slow for the next few months. The only thing that might change that would be the price getting a lot better. Our market this week on slaughter cows was $10 to $15 per hundredweight better. Those thin cows that would have brought $63 per hundredweight last week easily brought $78 per hundredweight. And the very best straight cows that brought $90 per hundredweight and had some flesh brought high $90s to $101 per hundredweight.
I think there was a slaughterhouse that needed cows to keep enough numbers of what they need to kill. Sometimes it might cost them more to pay them to do nothing than buy some too high.
It appears feeder cattle will stay at a very good price and will be a very limited supply. I know of several cattlemen who are buying lightweight calves and yearlings as they feel the numbers will be a very short supply by spring. One man who feeds a lot of bigger cattle told me that even though those 400- to 500-pound heifers seem high they will actually pencil out for a profit to leave them in the feedlot and sell in December.
No better than I like snow I would admit this was a very nice snow. In fact it would be fine if it snowed a foot or more as it is supposed to warm up in the mid 40s by Wednesday and 50s by Friday.
People with siblings have better survival skills because they have had experience in physical combat, psychological warfare and sensing suspicious activity.
I saw in Colorado a camera was set up in the mountains to film different wildlife. But the cameramen noticed a group of bears seemed to realize they were on camera and it was almost like they were posing and taking selfies for the camera. So the television commentators referred to them as bear selfies.
So I thought maybe all the workers at the sale barn should take bare selfies and then I realized it was spelled bear.
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.
