What a great cattle market we have now.
This past week I sold some good steers that we were a black, red and Charolais cross. The group that weighed 838 pounds and 902 pounds both brought basically the same dollars per head, which was just under $3,100 per head.
The steers that I purchased in these two bunches were bought a year ago. I dry wintered them then put them on short wheat and then on grass all summer. This is definitely once in a lifetime to advance cattle this much per head.
Never get to thinking that certain things have to happen in the cattle business according to numbers or charts or just previous years because sometimes outside factors change everything. If you don’t believe that just ask our Mexican rancher friends.
Forty years ago a friend was betting on pork bellies and he had lots of contracts because he was convinced the market was going a certain direction. Guess what? It didn’t. He about lost everything he had worked for all those years.
I want to stay in the market and keep my numbers about the same, but I will be the first to tell you that some cattle are bringing more than I want to give. But I will also tell you that I thought cattle were too high all along and those cattle made a lot of money.
Be sure and figure your taxes earlier this year so that you still have time to buy certain things instead of waiting too late and wishing you would have. Most cattlemen have had a very good year. I am very thankful for that.
A friend of mine who moved to our area several years ago from Mississippi was headed back there to visit family. I asked him how many hours it takes to get there. He said, “That all depends on if my wife is with me. Cause if I’m driving by myself I stop for gas only. But if she is with me we stop at every little town to use the bathroom or purchase something that we just have to have before we get there.”
It seems to me that Walmart wants me to put up my Christmas tree while eating Thanksgiving dinner and wearing my Halloween costume all at the same time.
I went in to see the doctor this week. He said, “Don’t eat anything fatty.” I said, “Like bacon and French fries?” He said, ‘”No Fatty’ don’t eat anything.”
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.
