I read an article that said a newspaper in Mexico is reporting that the Mexican-United States border will be open after the New World screwworm was discovered in cattle last month.
The article also said inspections will begin on cattle in pens at the border. So As I read that, I thought, “Wow, I guess it is opening now.” I was talking to a feedlot operator and told him what I read, and he said, “We feed a lot of customers Mexican cattle, and I am quite sure if it was opening now I would know it.” He said they tell him it will probably open in February, and it will start with northern Mexican cattle.
Let the good times roll as fat cattle last week in the North brought $195 per hundredweight, and in the South they brought $191 to $192 per hundredweight. One cattleman told me he thought some cattle being bought now had a $210.00 per hundredweight break even for them when they got fat, while others seemed to think some would break even from low $190s to $200.per hundredweight.
I love it when cattle are high, and I love to see cattlemen make money, but never get it in your head that they can’t fall in price for one reason or another. I think we are in good shape for the next couple of years, and hopefully longer, but I am not going to play my cards where they have to be this high for me to survive.
Years ago, a friend of mine was buying pork bellies on futures, and he was convinced there was no way they could go any lower. He was wrong. Never say never.
So far, for me, this is my kind of winter, with a nice rain in November and no snow and temperatures up to 60 degrees for most days. I hear several say we need snow for nitrogen. I’d rather just buy mine.
It’s interesting living in a small town, or I should say close to a small town. At our breakfast table it is mostly cowboys, farmers and throw in a few oil field workers from young to old. The other day the topic was who was the lady who got hurt by a bull? They had identified her age and a fairly close location where the ambulance went.
Before breakfast was over, there was another story told about a tricycle being hit by a car years earlier. Later that day, a man who has land close to where the ambulance went called me and said, “I heard a bull got out in the road and hit a lady on a bike.” I hope it wasn’t my bull.
For the longest time, I thought it was the dryer that was shrinking my clothes. Come to find out it was the refrigerator.
My wife said she wished she could cook in peace and quiet, so I turned off the smoke alarm.
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.
