All I'm going to say is that once again, we're increasing herd size (a smidge), but can't do much on 80 acres vs over 340 we had in KS.
I never did like feed lot approach but there's money in that for the back 40.
We're not dealing with auctions or corporate buyers any longer.
We have a small handful of local shops we are direct selling to with custom orders, custom this, that, etc.
Very high 400s depending on this or that, resulting in the 3 bulls being happy guys twice a week for the heifers we keep.
Btw, everyone is talking about the screwworm, that's a scary issue.
Frankly, how far can the damn insects fly in a few days is the key topic.
Our buyers are more than happy that we went custom order and have a super clean operation, so they are paying full price.
I do expect a temporary minor drop in prices mid-fall as folks trim their herd size for winter.
As for political talk, prices will not go down until heard sizes increase. And the price of production is preventing that. We think more ranchers will go custom preorder direct to shops and the middle man operations will struggle. One of the neighbors has followed that lead and cut a deal direct with a local supermarket chain.
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