Month: June 2024

Cow/Calf Producers; Share your insight and help shape the future!

– Kate Hornyak, OSU Extension Program Coordinator, Delaware County

Take a minute, share your thoughts, and participate in this eBarn project.

Assist us in shaping the future of beef cattle management by sharing your insights on the breeding practices within your operation. Take a moment to share how you manage reproduction in your beef cattle operation through our quick survey. Your responses will contribute to the OSU Extension 2024 eBarns report, providing valuable insights for other producers.

Your input is crucial, will only take a couple of minutes, and can impact the industry significantly, no matter how big or small your operation might be. Please follow this link now: https://go.osu.edu/beefcattlebreeding

Rising Cutout Value and Fewer COF

– David P. Anderson, Professor and Extension Economist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

At the time of writing this on May 28, the wholesale beef market, as measured by the Choice beef cutout, has jumped more than $16 per cwt in the last two weeks. Most of the cutout’s underlying primal cuts (the rib, loin, chuck, round, and brisket) have increased in value. Weekly beef production has dipped from six weeks of above a year ago production.

We might think about the cutout value in the context of USDA’s Cattle on Feed report released on Friday, May 24th. For the first time in eight months, the total number of Cattle on Feed declined below last year’s level. The 11.5 million Cattle on Feed were the fewest since September 2023. The number of Cattle on Feed has been elevated in recent months by placing more heifers, placing available feeder cattle earlier, and Continue reading Rising Cutout Value and Fewer COF →

Spot and Forward Markets

– Matthew Diersen, Risk & Business Management Specialist, Ness School of Management & Economics, South Dakota State University

Conventional wisdom says that nobody is expanding cattle herds. Usually, that means there is not enough expansion in aggregate to see any difference. Local or individual situations can differ, and contraction or expansion is normal to observe. For example, at South Dakota AMS-reported auctions, there have been several weeks with notable volumes of heifers traded as replacements. The volume, while interesting, does not defy conventional wisdom – the total for the month of May was smaller than the total from 2023. Expansion is not rampant. The heifers weighed 700-1,000 pounds and traded on both a per cwt and per head basis in both years. Replacements weighing close to 800 pounds traded at $249.00-291.00 per cwt. This reflects a premium compared to heifers not deemed as replacements that traded at $222.50-263.00 per cwt. The replacement prices also reflect a premium to the CME Feeder Cattle Index, which was averaging about $249.00 per cwt for the same period. Last year the replacements only traded at a few dollars above the Continue reading Spot and Forward Markets →