livestock prices

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here in maryland livestock prices seem to be going so high i dont know if we can afford to add to our stock. the local dairy farms do not want to sell us a holstein bull calf because they feel the price they get at the auction is so high it is not right to sell to friends at that. last spring the calves bottle bulls were around 90.00$ a head this year they are going for $150.00 to 200.00 for the same animal. our pigs last year,by the head for 15 - 20 lbs. cost us $10.00 to 15.00 each this year we paid over a dollar a pound . anyone have any ideas? i seem to feel it is because the farmers are leaving the trade and there is no neww stock coming in. we bought a holstein heifer 3 weeks old and paid 325.00$ she was one of the only ones we could find! what are prices like in your area ?

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), June 10, 2000

Answers

Renee, it's partly a function of the cost of feed in your area. If feed was high last year, farmers cut back on the number of head they carried through the winter, so now they are scarcer than they were, and the price goes up. Also has to do with the population level in your area -- less populated areas usually have lower prices. And with how much feed has to be shipped in, and how much is grown locally. It gets complicated! Anyway, you might try travelling out of your area to look for stock, but by the time you figure in travel costs, it may not be worth it, unless you are getting registered animals of a particular bloodline or type that's not available locally. I'm sorry that I can't tell you what critters are going for here in NH this spring, as we haven't been checking prices. Suspect it may be a little lower than where you are, but this isn't really farm country anymore, so maybe not much cheaper.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 10, 2000.

Prices here in central Maine are doing the same. A weaned piglet, if you can find it is around $35-$50. Good size holstein bull calves are hitting up to $200 dollars, and the heifers are going up to $350 at auction - and these are the calves you have to bottle feed. It isn't great for the buyer, but I'm delighted to see the prices go up - it costs alot of money to produce these critters. Jersey prices have gone up oo. Even chickens are doing well ($2.50-3.00) I'm sure the prices will drop though when we take animals in, usually does. That's one of the reasons we don't invest in the stock market - we don't want to collapse the economy.)

One of the reasons prices are going up, is because government mandates (such as a requirement to build manure lagoons - that's a a cool quarter million or more some of these big farms (over 50 head) have to lay out), price ceilings on milk prices - those high prices you are paying at the store doesn't hit the dairyman's wallet, those initial price increases last fall have disappeared. Add additional problems with urban sprawl (hay fields being turned into subdivisions) production prices, equipment repairs, I could go on and on. Bottom line for my husband and I is that before we sell any more animals at a loss, we'll slaughter and pass the meat out for free/barter to friends and neighbors. We've done it before and the good will is worth alot more to us then a few dollars. You don't see so called skilled or technical people taking less for their services or products. And please don't tell me there are so many government welfare programs for the farmer. Most farmers I know that have taken advantage of some of these programs have found themselves regretting it; kind of like inviting in the devil.

-- Anne Tower (bbill@wtvl.net), June 10, 2000.


Prices here in Texas are crazy too. I thought maybe part of it was the transport cost, but now I am inclined to think that it is the precursor of very high inflation on the way.

I do agree that the small holder is dwindling in numbers, but I think in the meat field, it has been headed that way for a long time. Ranchers here are running way more cattle than they have in previous years, and if we get rain they will be fine, but if it dries up you'll be able to pick the cattle up for a song.

-- Doreen (livinginskin@yahoo.com), June 11, 2000.


Prices here in central Wisconsin is about the same. We have a small ( 20 cow ) dairy and the price we recieve for milk is about .84 cents per gallon, the lowest we've seen. Yet the prices for dairy bull and heifer calves are the highest ever. I can't figure it out. Who can afford to pay those prices to replace the milking cows at todays milk prices. And hog prices are the same as 2 years ago yet at my grocery store last week I saw bacon for $4.00 per# whan 2 years ago you could buy bacon for $1.00 per# Who's getting rich? Not the farmer's, certainly not the consumers. Retail stores have little competition now , so I suppose they are taking advantage of it.

-- Jeanette Springer (jeni@dwave.net), June 11, 2000.

Well, around here, (northern Idaho), the prices seem to be pretty crummy. I don't know much about cattle or pigs, but it costs me at least $150.00 to raise a goat, or to keep a goat for a year, and when I went to the auction with a few of them, I got $75 or less for the milkers, and $27.00 for the month old buck kids, weighing about 25 lbs each. I was happy with the buck kid prices, but to get only $62.50 for a good milker, giving a gallon a day, was an insult. my friend noted that the hog prices were low,too, and that she wasn't going to raise anymore hogs because it was cheaper to buy them at the auction, that they couldn't be raised for what they were selling for. I don't think it's just the auction, either, because I can't get a decent price for my goats anywhere, and by decent I mean what it costs to raise them, about $150 for a yearling milker. People always ask why they cost so much ? !!! One lady said that she was going to bid on my friend's doe, a two year old registered,CAE negative Oberhasli, a great milker, but said that the price went too high. That doe sold for about $50.00. Not sure if it is just goats or if the people around here are stingy and cheap.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), June 12, 2000.


Yikes, Rebekah, at that price you'd almost be better off to just put them in your freezer! Could you find a struggling homesteader who needs milk for their family and give the animals as a donation or with a trade-for-work deal? Or contact the Heifer Project and see if they could use them? Then you could at least use them as a charitable deduction!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 12, 2000.

Don't know about hogs, but cattle prices are high locally due primarily to supply. Last summer and fall were droughty. A lot of guys in the local area simply ran out of both pasture and water, with rain-fed ponds drying up. Cattle were simply dumped on the market last fall. One day at the local sales barn they started at 10:30 AM and were still selling at 10:30 AM the next day. Something like 2,700 head went through. Now a good day is about 700 head. My cattle farm is blessed with lots of spring water, so that wasn't a problem. I have a very high water table also, so I got at least some grass growth all year - even during the mild winter. Local Ag. Service tried to get me to sign up for disaster assistance. Told them I didn't qualify since when others were selling, I was buying. Since 'the experts' are calling for another dry summer and fall, doesn't look like prices will go do. Best option if you want freezer beef is to simply buy a yearling steer or heifer of a dairy breed. For tenderness, they, as a group, rate higher than beef breeds, as a group.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), June 16, 2000.

Hi... I'm glad I found this discussion group. We are looking for holstein and holstein heifers to export. We can buy any quantity you can give us. Please e-mail me back if anyone of you guys can help.

abdein@juno.com

-- Zahi Abdein (abdein@juno.com), March 28, 2001.


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