# Beef Outlook



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

The impact of trade...

Regards, Mike

http://www.agweb.com/article/cattle-outlook-impact-of-trade/


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

Nice article Mike.

Two points caught my eye.

Live imports from Mexico are up mostly due to COOL for cattle finally being rejected. Mexican calves were docked heavily when COOL was being enforced. It hurt our normal cattle supply and added to the shortage of beef.

Slaughter numbers are adjusted weekly according to retail demand. Slaughter numbers may be down some, the lbs. of meat are not far off from previous numbers. Fat cattle are being fed longer, grown bigger. This helps compensate for the lower available numbers. Cheap corn allows this to be profitable. Slaughter cows (ground beef) numbers are down. The extra weight on Fat cattle helps with the ground beef supply.

A more recent development is packers buying fat cattle and keeping them on feed as the new owners. Pretty smart as a 1300 lb. beef is low risk mortality, cheap corn allows a bigger profit by growing them big.

The price reporting on fat cattle has been inefficient for a while now. Cattle bought on formula (future delivery or slide) do not have to be reported. Some weeks only a few thousand cattle fat are being reported as bought/sold. This keeps the real price from being public. Buy the #1's on formula and release the current price for what was paid for Holsteins of Corriente.


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