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December 5, 2009

Cattle prices remain low

Jerry Nine of Woodward Livestock Auction would like to see cattle selling for higher prices these days.

“Feeder (feedlot cattle) prices are not bad, but they can’t get better until the fat cattle prices get better,” Nine said.

While calf prices have picked up in the last three weeks, fat cattle, or cattle that are ready for market, have dropped in price, he said. Fat cattle were selling for $87 per 100 pounds, but then fell back to $83, he said.

He said packers have much to do with the lower prices.

“Packers are doing everything to keep the prices down,” he said.

Nine said the packers, which buy cattle and prepare them as meat to be sold in grocery stores, want prices to remain low, “because if they can sell their meat higher and buy lower, that’s more money in their pockets.”

Of course, the economy continues to affect the cattle industry.

“Some feedlots have been full but some are out of business now, so it’s kind of misleading to say the cattle industry is doing well,” he said.

“Last year it appeared cattle prices would be higher but they swung low,” which led to the demise of some of the feedlots no longer in operation, he said.

“It just takes so much to operate, and you get so much invested, you can’t make many blunders,” Nine said.

Rick Selby, a cattle buyer for Gage Cattle and Feed in Fargo, buys mainly stocker calves.

“The little heifer calves are probably about steady with the first part of the year,” he said, noting the “last little ... heifers this week cost about $101 per hundred pounds.”

“And the little steers are higher than they were the first of the year by about $5 per hundred weight, depending on their class,” he said. But compared to 18 months ago, they’re “lower by about $10.”

Because of this drop in price, Selby said, “People are not doing as well as a year-and-a-half ago."

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