Justin Angell

If I were going to describe the cattle market, I would use the adjectives resilient and tenacious. It’s like a tough kid that face plants off his bicycle, but just jumps up, dusts off, gets back on and keeps peddling. I’ve heard said that the cattle market always takes the stairs up, but the elevator shaft down. Apparently, the elevator shaft we just fell down has a trampoline at the bottom because we are flying right back up.

Every time something breaks this cattle market, the Cowboys seem to grow thicker calluses. Unofficially there seems to have been a holding action, whether that was because of the market or the hot weather or maybe a little of both, but now the market is rebounding and the calf run is beginning.

Almost all the good program calves weighing 450 pounds bring over $2000 per head again. Part of this action may be rain in wheat country, but as far north as we are that’s probably secondary to our price action from our local people just feeling more positive.

Fat Cattle stabilizing around $2.20 or better is good, but rebounding up to $2.30 or more would be better. Cattle on feed report Friday (unfortunately released after we go to print) will tell us quite a bit about the future. Last month. we reported the lowest number of placements in history of the report. If cattle placements again see placements under last year; I think we will be off to the races again.

Currently we are seeing the results of 300,000 metric tons of grinding meat coming into the market providing the packers a chance to buy kill cows $10-$40 per hundred lower than 2 months ago. I guess $1.40 or $1.60 is nothing to sneeze at. but when you’re accustomed to $1.80+, that just seems like a lot of value to lose in only a couple weeks. Trump administration’s meat import deal is for 90 days, which means that sometime after the election maybe the market for pound cows and bulls will resuscitate. But even now, a high yielding bull is still worth as much or more ($220) than our fat cattle.

Bred cows are still good property because offerings have been light through the summer months. October cow sale consignments I’ve been working with are very light, but both October 6th and November 3rd cow sales are percolating, so stay tuned.

Also of note: October is sale and delivery month for Western bred heifers.

The most interesting item that I’ve run across this month has to do with modernizing grading and yield measurement in our modern packing plants.

A few years ago, we modernized the quality grade system with a computer program that replaced USDA graders and now basically a computer takes a picture of the ribeye at the 13th rib and calculates the percent of fat and size of the ribeye and determines a quality grade immediately.

As a sidenote, I think it’s interesting the USDA allows the Packers to be responsible for calibrating that instrument. Is that why, at least in part, the percent of prime has gone from 5% to 25% over the last 5 years?

Anyway, back to my interesting bit of information. I have found out that Cargill has been doing research on a new way to calculate carcass merit by using a big CAT scan. Currently, yield grades are estimated and averaged and we are paid on what is known as the hot carcass weight.

Basically, the Cargill system could potentially be the most significant change in valuation in 50 years.

The Cargill system takes hanging carcasses and exposes them to a giant CAT scan, basically measuring an entire carcass in slivers. The correlated computer will not only determine what percent fat, but also what percent of bone and what percent of red meat that individual carcass is composed of. The computer immediately assigns a value to each of those components instantly, calculating a whole carcass value.

If bone is worth $.12 per pound and fat is worth $.50 per pound, but lean meat is worth $3.50, this could potentially make breeds known for a higher red meat yield more valuable than breeds known for high marbling and the associated high fat content of a hot hanging carcass.

If this system is to be implemented in January 2028, that only gives us a little over a year to convert our bull batteries to Charolais, Simmental and Limousin bulls.

I think this is a joke… but maybe it’s not. Limitation technology often brings drastic unforeseen change. Time will tell
I think that’s all I’ve got for this month. I will see you at the Auction.