Holstein feeder/fat cattle issues!!!

The feed/fat Holstein market dropped like a rock around here after Tyson quit buying Holstein cattle. Monday's market showed this is spades. Beef breeds $1.22-1.28 per pound. Holsteins fat cattle $.82-.87 per pound. WOW The funny thing is bottle calves are still bringing $100-175 per head for 100 LBS calves. There are several LARGE Holstein feeders around me and they are HURTING bad!!!

Then you have fellows that just hit bad luck. Good friend has been feeding Holstein calves out for years. Smaller operator usually 50-80 head total. He bought a group of fifty 300-400 lbs. calves last year they are just now finishing. The death loss started after few weeks and never stopped. The vets from two different practices tried and could never figure out what was going on. He had multiple calves posted with not results. Long story short we will be hauling the finished calves to market in the morning. One load, 13 calves is all that made it to market weight!!!! Figure the lost out on that pen!!! 74% death loss. Many of the calves made it up until 900-1000 lbs. too. All we could come up with is we think the calves never got much if any colostrum. So the whole group had few defenses to any type of bugs or stress.

Sorry for anyone to have a bad year.. I thought my year was bad but no comparison to that. had my senior bull go bad but wouldnt let junior bull get close to cows. Had a couple baby calves I thought were snake bit.. But now I think the local dog was attacking them.. He killed 5 more before I figured out what was getting them. He wont get any more.

Sounds to me like he had Micoplasma in his calves, but the market is going to hurt about as bad as the death loss. Sometimes you can make money no matter how hard you try not to, other times, you can't make money or keep critters alive no matter what you do!!!

I wouldn't think lack of colostrum would show up that late. They would have developed their own immunity.

But ya,AgDay did a story on the dive in fed Holstein prices a few weeks ago that originated from a local stock yard. Most Midwest packers are at capacity with colored cattle,so they're refusing Holsteins. They have to go for a long ride,so they ain't worth much. I'm sure glad I danced to my own drummer. I bought a couple of cow/calf herds back in the early 2000s from guys who were going to just buying Holstein calves and putting all their feed and efforts in to them instead of feeding cows. Glad I'm not in their shoes now.

I talked to a friend last week. He and his brother are contract feeding Holstein cattle. He said for a feed company. I don't know any thing about the terms of the contract. I assume they get paid the same no matter the market! We had other things to talk about and not nearly enough time to do so.

The poor Holstein market has been bad since the mid-late 90's here. The only time the plants show interest in them is when beef is sky high because of shortage. They entice people to buy them because the calves are half as expensive and they promise to give them a good grade come butcher time. By the time guys have a good sized feedlot of them ready to go beef by that point is way down again and the first ones to get the price plunge are the black&whites. Seen it over and over again the last 20+ years.

Our Producer livestock sale here in Zanesville Ohio had Holsteins at 65 cents last week,, we had some Angus steers that sold for $1.35 at the same sale.

I saw on Market to Market, the tv show, the lady claimed on their market plus segment, that the drop in Holstein price was due to certified Angus beef. She claimed, that it use to be, if an animal was more then 50% black, it could be called Angus beef. Most Holsteins are more then 50% black. The Angus guys put a stop to that and some packers quit buying Holsteins because of it. Just what I saw on the net so you can check it out for yourself.

Could comment on why this fellas feeders died , cause I have never heard of such looses before . But as for the price drop , high retail price , leas to over supply .And over supply means lower price for the primary producer , it is as simple as that .