We are experiencing a sell off of quite a few beef herds in our area because the ranchers are out of pasture, water, or hay. This isn’t the normal steers for feed and slaughter, but the actual breeding herds. If this trend continues there will, at some point in the future, be a lot fewer cattle available for consumption. We’re praying for rain.
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Last edited by Oak Smoke; July 16, 2022, 10:39 AM. -
Yikes!! Time to start beating the drums and doing the rain dance. -
Hoping for rain. Even in Buffalo we are low, but not in a drought.Comment
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Same. Emory sale barn had the entire town sewn up couple of weeks agoComment
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My first real paying job was working at a sales barn. I was 14 years old and worked 27 hours straight my first day(s). Back then we'd run thousands of beef and sheep a month. Hard, hard work but I loved every minute of it and the $1.65 an hour I made (well, except for shoveling sh!t to clean the pens)!
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Sad for for Cattle People having to sell their cows.
There are some who don't realize how much those Ranchers and Farmers love their animals. I was raised on a Dairy Farm and around Agriculture my entire life.
Last edited by Skip; July 16, 2022, 02:29 PM.Comment
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I just texted my buddy who runs a grass-fed beef operation just south of Bastrop. He thinks this drought is worse than 2011. He normally produces excess hay to sell for extra income but is having to buy hay now.Comment
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I follow a couple of farmers on YouTube, these guys got nerves of steel and cast iron stomachs.
How else could you live in today’s farm economy but it’s always been like that, when my uncle had his beef farm it was a new John Deere every season or going to the scrap yard for used tires for the hay wagon.
Problems always been the auctions, cattle go cheap until they’re meat hits the bunker at the local Piggly Wiggly.Comment
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And I get it, my cousin thru in the towel 10-11 years ago when he made like $35 for four head after shipping costs.
About time farmers got a bigger piece of the pie for the risks they take. -
We started doing as much business as we could directly with farmers and ranchers shortly after the pandemic began. Dairy delivered from the local creamery, a produce & egg farmshare from a community supported agriculture outfit, most meat online through the vendors we all know. Really glad we did, good to have a diverse portfolio of sources these days...
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One of my top musical heroes, James McMurtry, has a song called South Dakota that was prompted by a major early-fall blizzard out that way in 2013, when a lot of cattle were lost, many of which had been purchased from Texas ranchers because of drought during those years. I've never lived a life on the land, I'm a suburbanite, but those I know who have reckon this captures a lot of the reality...
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Keep those freezers full folks.Comment
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I mentioned something similar in the middle of a thread not long ago on here but got no reaction, understandably. On a recent FB group discussion someone mentioned how beef prices looked to be going down again. What folks don't understand, until they digest what Lynn is saying in this thread, is that ranchers are culling their herds in record numbers now because the drought conditions have decimated the pastures and alternate feed products are seeing price increases through the roof. I have a buddy who was in upper management in the beef industry and he sends me industry reports weekly that show the tracking the industry insiders do as routine. Herd culls are running around 20% above normal at this point and, probably more alarming, quite a bit of it is heifers. For you agriculturally impaired that would be breeding stock for future supplies. To put that into some context, it takes roughly two years for a calf to go from birth to slaughter weight. When conditions eventually right themselves (trying to be positive here) it's going to be a bit of a haul to get the herd sizes back to where they normally are. Talking about slaughter, normally the average weight at slaughter is 900 pounds. This year a graph charting actual production shows a steady decline for the first six months of '22 with June average down to 850 pounds. There's more doom and gloom in the numbers, but let's just summarize by saying by the end of this year beef supplies are going to be significantly lower, and thus prices, higher. And it won't turn around quickly as beef ranchers live in the real world where bulls don't get pregnant..................Last edited by Uncle Bob; July 16, 2022, 05:57 PM.Comment
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Thank you Bob. Your explanation should help others see that something significant is happening here. There’s information that you can use to better prepared for the inevitable price changes that will come after this glut of beef works it’s way through the system. There’s likely going to be quite a bit of select beef hit the shelves as some of the brood cattle are processed. I’ve bought select briskets at $1.99 a lb and ground them in to hamburger that would have cost $3.99 a lb. -
Looks like better we get used to chicken and pork animals that reproduce fast and have more than one offspring unlike beef.
We’re probably 95% chicken and pork given it’s price around here.
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Sobering, but not altogether surprising, given all the conditions afoot. These past several years have certainly demonstrated how interconnected a lot of things are. I really appreciate getting this perspective.Comment
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