Beef Prices

All I'm going to say is that once again, we're increasing herd size (a smidge), but can't do much on 80 acres vs over 340 we had in KS.
I never did like feed lot approach but there's money in that for the back 40.
We're not dealing with auctions or corporate buyers any longer.
We have a small handful of local shops we are direct selling to with custom orders, custom this, that, etc.
Very high 400s depending on this or that, resulting in the 3 bulls being happy guys twice a week for the heifers we keep.
Btw, everyone is talking about the screwworm, that's a scary issue.
Frankly, how far can the damn insects fly in a few days is the key topic.
Our buyers are more than happy that we went custom order and have a super clean operation, so they are paying full price.
I do expect a temporary minor drop in prices mid-fall as folks trim their herd size for winter.

As for political talk, prices will not go down until heard sizes increase. And the price of production is preventing that. We think more ranchers will go custom preorder direct to shops and the middle man operations will struggle. One of the neighbors has followed that lead and cut a deal direct with a local supermarket chain.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-shortage-fear

https://www.npr.org/2025/09/18/nx-s1...ng-for-a-while

Expect beef prices to continue to rise for awhile

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...s/86346766007/

Oof

https://www.tsln.com/news/u-s-cattle...n-beef-prices/

As Trump finally starts to figure out beef prices are too damn high the U.S. Cattlemen's Association weighs in

Oh look, importing beef to try to help bring down prices. Reminds me of the egg plan

https://apnews.com/article/beef-arge...9c3623f901209a

Oh look, importing beef to try to help bring down prices. Reminds me of the egg plan
https://apnews.com/article/beef-arge...9c3623f901209a Originally Posted by HDGristle

The US buying beef from overseas is at best a low margin or break even due to transport costs and sales competition prices with local cattle.

But, there are custom built ships (and converted cargo ships) for livestock transport.

There's large shipments from South America to the Middle East and North Africa.
Australia ships a lot of live sheep

https://www.tsln.com/news/u-s-cattle...n-beef-prices/
As Trump finally starts to figure out beef prices are too damn high the U.S. Cattlemen's Association weighs in Originally Posted by HDGristle

From the article:
“The cost of producing beef today is accurately represented in the consumer markets where it is sold,” said Justin Tupper, President of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA). “Ranchers are facing historic highs for feed, fuel, labor, and land—and those costs have risen far faster than beef prices on grocery shelves.”

Just as a side note- I usually buy 5 or 10 lbs of ground beef at a time, and use 1 or 2 and then freeze the rest. I just pulled my last lb of 85/15 ground beef, and the price I paid not that long ago- was 1.99 a pound. I was at the store and it was almost 5.00 today. ON SALE from 6.00 -fucking giant eagle but damn, that's a pretty steep increase. I have a good vaccuum sealer, so I don't mind buying and freezing, but at this rate- I'm not sure where you find it sub 4.50 a pound ever now.

Farmers are outraged by the prospect of an Argentina beef deal

https://www.newsweek.com/sold-us-out...-deal-10911963