Cattle on Feed report aligns with tight supplies
The April 17 Cattle on Feed report indicated a 1% year-over-year decline in cattle with 11.6 million head on feed. This aligns with the expectation of tight supplies.
March placements were 1.71 million head down 7% from 2025 while marketings fell 6% to 1.63 million head. Both of these marked the lowest totals for March since 1996.
The latest steer carcass weights were 2 pounds lower at 981 pounds. That is still 32 pounds above year ago levels. Most feedlots are feeding cattle extra days as the cost of gain is much cheaper than the price of the fat animal ready for slaughter. Choice beef was quoted only $4 higher than Select as far as boxed beef with Choice quoted at $381.57.
We desperately need a rain over a very big area. I was joking with some this morning saying, “I would like to sell you my wheat crop for you to bale.” Then we laughed trying to decide how you could even come up with one bale over the entire field.
One said, “Well, if you could get a lot of dirt in the bale.” I said, “You would have to find a bottom area of grass with last year’s weeds.” Anyway, we might as well laugh about it. But it is expensive to get very little or no wheat pasture after investing that much in a crop. There is some wheat 20 miles away that they are laying down to bale. Hopefully more as it is always nice to have extra hay around.
This past week we made contract highs in live cattle and feeder cattle futures.
This past week there was a string of light weight calves black and black-white face off first calf heifers. One set of heifers weighed 145 pounds brought $1,450 per head, 51 head of bull calves weighing 226 pounds brought $2,125 per head. I guess they sold the calves early to try to get more of the 2-year-old heifers to breed back. A set of Charolais steers at 1,038 pounds brought $3,316 per head.
My wife just stopped and said, “You weren’t even listening were you?” I thought that is a strange way to start a conversation.
One man said when he and his wife first started dating, which was about 50 years ago, another gal was looking at him and his girlfriend walked over to this other gal and said, “I’m going to slap that lipstick right off your face.”
A drunk man’s words is a sober man’s thoughts.
I heard a man say, “I use to know how to dress until I got married.”
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 and grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
