Justin Angell

Pretty interesting month when it comes to the cattle business. I’ve been talking about the hot cattle market for months. At this time, the only thing that’s been really hot recently were the cattle in the Western Feedyards. Daytime heat is not the biggest problem. What actually terminates big Fat Cattle in the feedyard is when it does not cool down at night and the animals just have no ability to reset their internal thermometers.

One of our Feedyard yards in Nebraska told me that August 1st the heat index was 106 during the day with no breeze, and at 10:30 PM, heat index was still 105 degrees. The next day since the cattle had no chance to cool off, even with every pen being watered, they started dying. Eventually, over the next two days, that yard lost 60. Accurate figures are hard to come by because nobody wants to publicize how many dead cattle they’ve had.

Just for the sake of conversation, seven of those 60 were mine. All were out of one pen; a set of steers and banded bulls that I had turned out for a long time, but they had only been out there in the yard for 20 days. Absolutely no good situation, but not nearly the loss on the front end of feeding compared to a 1,500 pound ready to harvest steer on the back end of feeding.

This killer heat wave stretched from the Dakotas through Nebraska in Kansas and down into the Texas Panhandle, killing cattle across all those states. Kansas and Nebraska took the brunt with an estimated 100,000 of big cattle lost.

The other thing that was lost about that time was our valuable fed cattle market. Since then, the feeder and calf markets have declined proportionately, losing many hundreds of dollars per head in value.

As most of you know, something else we have lost locally is the Tyson packing plant at Joslin, Illinois. Hearing this, I was surprised because they just recently completed an extensive renovation of the plant’s cooler space. That would’ve potentially cost millions of dollars.

We’ve suspicioned for at least six months that due to our shortage of domestic cattle, the packing industry was looking for ways to right size kill capacity and reduce the red ink flowing out of every beef plant in the country. The Joslin plant had the capacity to kill 3,000 head per day and employed 2,500 people. They are also shuttering a facility in Pasco, Washington, but that west coast facility is going to be sold.

A few bright spots. The first is it looks like the new American Foods packing plant near Warrenton, Missouri, which has been gearing up and training up predominantly using kill cows, will now be moving into also harvesting fed cattle. I’ve spoken to, and know of several Missouri and Illinois producers that buy a lot of local cattle that are initiating the change from marketing fed cattle through Tyson to American Foods.

This will be supportive for our local feeder cattle market having a viable option close.

Secondly, the Tyson plant that will remain open in Amarillo, Texas has initially announced the addition of second shift. This will also be supportive of all our local cattle markets.

Also, some good news I found very interesting that I cannot substantiate, so let’s call it speculation or gossip. I’ve been told by a good source that the Mexican border opening will have much less effect than what we thought because during the 19-month closure, the Mexican drug cartels have discovered cattle feeding and beef processing. They have apparently enthusiastically built infrastructure, including feed yards, roads and packing facilities.

I’m sure with their captive supply, this business makes them profitable with the side benefit of a dirty-money laundry. Ironically, my source tells me that by year end, the open border may see more American cattle move south than Mexican cattle moving north. Supportive to our cow calf markets and producers.

More irony is the fact that Canadian Feedyards apparently have an abundance of cheap feed, so many of the best high-volume buyers in the northern states are Canadians. The currency exchange rate has always been an issue, but that is mitigated by Canadian tax policy. Apparently just like we can write off in one year a tractor or bred heifers as a capital expenditure, Canadian cattleman are allowed to write off feeder cattle purchases. Wouldn’t that be a game changer if we could do that? Very supportive for American cattlemen.

Looking forward, we need to watch grain prices, especially corn, with my commodity guy telling me for months that USDA numbers, especially global ending stocks, are way too optimistic, and corn (and wheat) will potentially be a lot higher by harvest. That would pour salt into the wounded cattle feeders. USDA Cattle on Feed is coming Friday after Advocate’s printing. I hope that is a hill to stand on. Remember a month ago the cow inventory numbers? July 2025 — 28.7 million cows and then July 2026 — 28.5 million cows…. That’s 200,000 less. We’ve lost our leverage, but we haven’t overnight produced 200,000 new cows.

Bottom line is the cow calf man is in good position and may be good for years — assuming no black swans or unforeseeable events.

You cowboys that are interested in maintaining or increasing your inventory, the next High Noon cow sale at F&T Livestock Market is on September 1st.

Only thing better than a cow sale is a cow sale with a sponsored free meal. This month’s sponsor is Laura Fidler of Legacy Land and Livestock. Come to the sale before lunch and see if Laura is serving beef or fried chicken.

See you at the auction!