Hanging Weight

[OneFineAcre]

I didn't take offense although I was a little uncertain of what you meant when you said we were talking apples and oranges since I thought that the first questions were about how much meat you could expect back, not what it would cost.
But then I figured that maybe you were a little surprised that there wasn't more return from a full grown animal.
Prices here on 8-9 wt steers are in the 1.00 to 1.15 range so they would not realize a great return on their steers. I don't know what the markets there are like; but from what I am seeing they aren't great. I hate that they are going to sell in the worst time of the year, is there any way you can help them get through until it looks like grass in your area, say March or so? The cows that are bred will bring a little better if people are looking for something to go on grass, at least around here.
We just went to a bred cow sale last week and they brought in the 1100 to 1600 range. That's confirmed, vet checked preg for spring calves. Bred heifers brought 1100 to 1300. Any cull cows, for slaughter, are only in the $.50 lb range. We bought one with a calf by her side for 910. and another that was mostly longhorn with a calf for 485. That was barely kill price for her. Don't know where you are in relation to a market and since your FIL has been doing this for a long time he should be fairly knowledgeable of the markets. Maybe you/he can find someone looking for a set of bred cows. A suggestion, you may want to keep a few more of the cows since they are already knowing what to do when calving comes around. A heifer that is having trouble isn't something that an 88 year young man wants to tackle by himself whereas a cow is less likely to have problems....plus the heifers are worth twice what the cows are worth unless you find someone who wants them bred. 2 years ago here they were worth 2500 head....
2 years ago that 8-9 wt steer would have brought 2.00 lb. We sold 30, 430 lb avg steers for 1.25 back in Oct and 2 years ago we were getting 2.50 to 3.00 for that weight. We knew that those prices were too high but no one ever expected it to take the nose dive it did. We figure we can make a little money and pay our bills on 1.75 lb 450 wt steers. The 2.50 was unreal, but we only got that for 18 months and then it dropped back to less than what we were getting 4 years ago, so any gains we made we have already lost financially. Weaned heifers are barely bringing 1.00 lb for any weight from 350 to 900. And naturally we had 75% heifers born this fall so we will really be behind next year when we sell feeders.
I always tell people to expect 25% of the live weight back in meat. Then when they get a little more they are happy. But still some people think that they will get back 800 lbs from a 1200 lb animal. The weight of the guts, hide, head, legs/hooves from the knees/hocks down is ALOT. And the better the finish on the animal, the greater fat trim you will get. So if you get 350 lbs meat that is over 35% of the total animal (1100lbs) so that is good.

That's about what they are selling for here too
We are going to try to get them to hold out on selling for a while to see if prices go up

 

[OneFineAcre]

@farmerjan

I found these pictures from last year when the in laws gave us a quarter of a steer.

Not sure what it weighs, but this is what it looks like.

 

[farmerjan]

Oh to have such a nice clean neat nearly empty freezer....LOL . Looks about like what we get except that I now get my ground beef in 1 lb packages vacuum packed. They flatten it so that it fills a "square" package. At first the butcher said that I was crazy, but I told him that I did not want it in the round "bags" as it was not vacuum packed and even though they get most all the air out. So it comes back flat in a vacuum pack bag, and they are soo stackable. Plus you can just take and cut it in 4 pieces and have 1/4 lb burgers....Now he says that he has nearly half the people getting theirs that way....and said look at what I started. . It takes up alot less room that way and is alot easier to handle. Looks like about 75 lbs meat and about a third of that is ground beef. Nice looking steaks, seem to have some pretty good marbling.

Also, we just went and picked up 6 new bred cows that a friend had gotten. He's a dealer and sometimes finds some pretty decent buys and since we are down about 20 cows from where we want to be.....2 - older bigger cows 950 ea, 2 - 3rd or 4th calf cows 850 ea and 2 - 2nd calf young cows ( and High Strung as all get out!!!!) for 650 each. Avg 800 / 6= $4800. They are all 6+ months bred so will start in Feb/Mar. That's alot less than what we saw 2 weeks ago. For your FIL sake I sure hope they come up some by spring....If we can sell 500 lb heifers for 500 and buy back some bred cows @ 8-900 we are ahead since it will be 2+ years before the heifers would calve. Granted we do keep our best heifers for replacements, but it offers us a much quicker turn around. They don't all work out and the 2 young ones may only be here til spring after they calve if their attitudes don't improve. We'll see.