# MARKETING



## bloonskiller911 (Mar 11, 2015)

Can anyone give me advice on how to read the usda market prices for lambs.  I am having a heck of a time reading this thing.  I have just been taking the market weight span and that market price span, finding that average and then dividing the price by pound.  does that make sense?  we have a locker that is interested in a few of our lambs and they wanted the current market price.  Any help will be appreciated.


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## SheepGirl (Mar 12, 2015)

This is an auction near to me: http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/ln_ls322.txt

Here is a snippet of the report:


> Slaughter Lambs Wooled & Shorn Choice and Prime 2-3
> Head Wt Range Avg Wt Price Range Avg Price
> 30 40-50 44 290.00-300.00 298.29
> 101 50-60 54 300.00-330.00 308.05
> ...



"Head" refers to how many were sold.
"Wt Range" refers to the weight range of the number of animals listed.
"Avg Wt" refers to the average weight of the number of animals listed.
"Price Range" refers to the price range of the number of animals listed.
"Avg Price" refers to the average price of the number of animals listed.

Note that price is listed per cwt (hundred weight, 100 lbs), so where it says 120, it actually means $1.20/lb.

Now, let's just say you have a lamb that is 74 lbs that you want to sell. To find how much you could sell the lamb for, go to the weight range where it says 70-80. In Good, Choice, and Choice and Prime (carcass grades), you have four options listed for the weight range.

Here they are:



> Slaughter Lambs Wooled & Shorn Choice and Prime 2-3
> Head Wt Range Avg Wt Price Range Avg Price
> 17 70-80 72 275.00-290.00 282.89 Hair Sheep
> 
> ...



It looks like hair sheep sell for a little bit more than non-specified hair sheep.

Your lamb is 74 lbs, so you would look at the average weight of 75 (under choice) and get the price per pound of $2.6548, making your lamb worth about $196.46. Ideally, you would match it up to the carcass grade, which of course depends on breed, genetics, and feeding. Meat type breeds will almost always be found towards the top, depending on how they're fed. Lean hair breeds (barbados and possibly St. Croix) and smaller thin boned breeds (Shetland, maybe Icelandic??) will find it hard to grade that high unless they're fed well to put some muscle and fat on.

Here's information on grades: http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/livestock/lambcarcass.shtml

Let me know if you have anymore questions.


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## bloonskiller911 (Mar 13, 2015)

So just to clarify, where it says price range 290.00-300.00 that is not the overall price that the sheep sold for, that is for the hundred count weight.  I move my decimal 2 places to the left and the price per pound range would be $2.90-$3.00 then I would apply this towards my lambs weight, if I had one that fell into that category.  in this example it would be one that weighed between 40-50 lbs.  This is the information in the first line on the chart you copied, if you want to check my work.  so we would assume that a 45 lb lamb would sell for approx. $2.95/lb and would be worth $132.75. 

Did I understand this all right?


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## SheepGirl (Mar 13, 2015)

Thats correct!


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