THEE Hot Barn Report!
Heard ONLY on American radio stations across the nation and online at hotbarnreport.com!!
Welcome to America’s Hot Barn Report now heard coast to coast and border to border
It is official, we have just confirmed our 12th reporting barn for the big fall run. We now blanket the great Northern beef belt from Motely, Minnesota to Torrington, Wyoming.
The Hot Barn Report is a fast paced and entertaining daily program covering the latest news and trends in the cattle industry, hosted by Monte James, a veteran rodeo announcer, radio host and industry expert! The Hot Barn Report features interviews with industry leaders, market analysts, producers and ranchers and features True Price Discovery from salebarns in Great Northern Beef Belt and across the nation.
Falling like the mercury in January only I’m not talking about the temperature, I’m talking about the USDA cattle inventory report! Thanks for joining me today on this special Friday edition of the Hot Barn Report!
Every six months the USDA issues a total cattle inventory report. This summer report didn’t have any big surprises if you are among one of my people. You know, the kind of people that live in rural America and have your hand in the cattle business. I guess it affirms or quantifies what we all know, the domestic cattle industry is shrinking.
The USDA reports, “There are 29.4 million beef cows in the United States as of July 1, 2023, down 3% from last year. The number of milk cows in the United States remained unchanged at 9.40 million. U.S. calf crop was estimated at 33.8 million head, down 2% from 2022. All cattle on feed were at 13.1 million head, down 2% from 2022.” We have been on a decline since 2018 with a healthy uptick in liquidation since 2020.
The pencil pushers keep wondering when the people will take advantage of this upside market. But, what the pencil pushers, I mean analysts, don’t realize is the nose dive in cattle numbers is directly proportional to the population that wants to feed cows in blizzards, put up hay in sweltering heat, miss their children’s activities to take care of cattle, never take a vacation, and basically “bet the ranch” on not making any money at the end of the year.
While these markets are exciting, they are nowhere near meeting the cost of inflation that we are forced to pay for inputs! Has anyone had to buy parts for their baler this summer? I mean, if you can even find parts in stock!
There will always be a drought in some part of the country as weather patterns shift. We know that Missouri is terribly dry and parts of Kansas and Nebraska are still in the red on the drought monitor. The mainstream ag media is getting wise to the fact that we can’t blame the drought for the herd liquidation forever. No one is buying it anymore.
While DC has put American agriculture on the back burner countries like Mexico are building their cowherds in order to fill our beef market needs. In May alone, we brought 103,000 head of live cattle in from Mexio. That is on top of the 31,000 tons of beef we imported that month! But this is where the concept of global trade has brought us, to our knees. When we can’t afford to produce goods any longer below the cost of production, DC opens the wallet to countries who can undercut our domestic producers and in the case of beef, they may get lucky and even get a “Product of USA” label slapped on that product. Did that return any money to the ranchers of rural America or rural Mexico, for that fact? No! Global corporations sucked up the profit off the middle and left us with crumbs and the consumer holding the bill to the pay.
Gosh, and we wonder why we can’t get the kids to come back to the ranch and tie into a string of bred first calf heifers?
More than mercury is rising at these Diamond Dozen Hot Barns, the markets are too and they are ready to serve you: Stockmens Livestock, Lemmon Livestock, North Platte Stockyards, St. Onge/Newell, Platte Livestock Market, Tri County Stockyards, Torrington Livestock, Creighton Livestock Market, Bassett Livestock Auction, Mobridge Livestock, Ogallala Livestock Auction Market, and Presho Livestock. Catch them all on CattleUSA.com.
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