At Marysville KS sale barn last week. In. Sane.
Some ranchers near Valentine sold their 1000 head of cows at $4000 per and rented the ranch out.

Beef prices are crazy right now lowest cow herd in years,people are selling instead of keeping replacement heifers going to get worse iam afraid.

The strike at JBS in Colorado isn't going to help either.
6,000 less head getting slaughtered every day they are out. G.

Cows are alot of work. Alot of producers are plowing up pastures and growing rowcrops. Take the winters off. Except this winter theyve been able to apply anhydrous and disc all winter.

This week Amish neighbor sent a week old Holstein Angus cross. $1350.

Yet at our little hometown locker you can buy a strip for $11 or a t-bone for $15.

2 years ago a load of 350 pound calves cost us around $80,000. We got 4 loads in last week that cost $240,000 a load. It’s not a good situation. I saw breed heifers bring $5200 a couple weeks ago

The strike at JBS in Colorado isn't going to help either.
6,000 less head getting slaughtered every day they are out. G.

had a bull sale at fremont iowa satureday sold 185 averaged just under 10;000 apiece a lot of bull sales now

I bought Porterhouse steaks last week on sale for $6.79 a pound. Paid $8.99 for New York strips yesterday.

If you’re going to pay better than 10k for average breeder bulls it may be time to look into buying semen.

Osky

We ai about 300 head a year. More work and at 60% success rate ots debatable if its a good thing for the commercial guys

What's your protocol for AI? We've had dismal success and moved away from it, I would be happy at 60%

Heifers get seeders for 3 weeks I believe then lute shot cows are lute shot and seeder for like 10 day then lute shot again. Timing and detecting the heat properly is the most influential part, then maybe the tech depositing it properly. Bulls are better at both and instead of one deposit they make multiple of a longer window.

I apologize,I got them out of order

From those who know nothing about cattle but are still curious, can you tell us what those numbers mean?

2.5 acres is likely never going to make sense to try and cow calf on. $15,000 for a fence and shelter, that'd be a roll Royce of shelters compared to what I'm using

Not necessarily jumping in when prices are high just of the age to buy some cows like we always had growing up and if its worth something now seems like itd be the time... not to have a bunch of costs when they aren't worth anything... right?

Number on the left is weight class. Numbers on the right are prices per hundred weight. 300-400 pound steers were selling for $501-$610 per hundred pounds or $5.01-$6.10 per pound.

Here 4000 a pair is about what they’re bringing here, the JBS thing will just move cattle to other kill plants, dairies are keeping cows longer and putting up with less milk because the calf will make up for it, I can remember when Holstein bull calves were killed because they couldn’t give them away and now they’re over 1000 dollars per head.

Yes at the same time pigs weren't worth anything either we bought alot for 10.00 to 20 dollars and butchered/processed them and sold it for 1.00lb straight thru chops,bacon,ham and sausage once word got out we were getting more orders then we could handle.but we made good money doing it.

I've got nothing but respect for people that raise cattle, similar to trapping the work doesn't stop regardless of the variables. I've been trying to talk my father into cutting back some raising them but he loves to do it. Our operation started around 20-30 years ago when i made the mistake of buying two roping calves off a local rodeo for $70 a piece. They were two wild Brahman calves which over the years obviously it's gone to Angus with a few Charolais. Our little operation probably has some of the tamest cows I've seen, sometimes I feel like they're pets. I mentioned getting out of them this year and his response was why? They're the highest they've ever been, to which my reply was why not? He enjoys it I suppose but he's nearly 73 years old and has somewhere around 100 pair with a few bulls. He still raises them on his own other than a couple drives a year between feedlot/stalks and feedlot/pasture. That's a lot of work for one man and I respect that.

We were actually moving half of them off a 1/4 of stalks to the feedlot a couple weeks ago and lost one calve as he ran into the trees, one of the other guys helping piled right in behind him and said can't let that $1000 bill get away....I laughed. He wasn't kidding.

I just got a sales sheet from the place we used to buy bulls from when we had cows, the auction prices are starting at 5000 up to 6000.

As bull prices have gotten higher I've collect a few higher end cows, these are cows I AI to try and produce my own bulls from.

What flavor bulls are you after?