In today’s Beef Buzz, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with longtime Manager Bill Barnhart of OKC West who says the current cattle market has been unlike anything he’s seen in years. “It’s been crazy good. It just seems like we blow through a price barrier every week, and it’s been like this since May,” he explained. We looked back at some of those prices and compared them from May to right now, and some of those classes are 40, 50, even 60 dollars a hundred weight higher than they were just 90 days ago, and that’s quite a market.”
Barnhart says buyers who initially resisted the higher prices are now returning in force. “They balk the first time they have to try to buy them, and sooner or later, they need cattle, and so now they’re coming back in and they’re just scooping them up,” he said. With lighter runs of cattle and strong demand, he added, “Some of them are bringing just incredible prices.”
Looking ahead, producers are weighing the cost of putting calves on wheat pasture. Barnhart explained, “You’ve got to, you know, buy a $2,200, $2,300, $2,400 calf to put on wheat pasture. And you know, their challenge is going to be, how are we going to make them work? Well, it’s going to be quite an interesting game we play here for the next several months.”
Despite the risks, Barnhart says optimism remains strong among cattlemen. “A cattleman is generally an eternal optimist,” he noted. He pointed out that cattle bought last winter for $2,000 are now “bringing $3,000 coming back off the grass. And so, you know, that’s what you got to keep in mind, you don’t know where this thing’s going.”
He also sees signs that herd rebuilding may be underway. “People are starting to get that on their mind, and we just keep selling cows, and they’ve got to replace them sooner or later,” Barnhart said. With bred cows bringing big money, he added, “it’s going to take years to build the herd back up. But you know, when you can sell a calf for $2,200, well, why not have a cow?”
Conveniently located on Interstate 40, OKC West was built in the 1980s and was designed to handle truck load lots of cattle easily in and out- and has become one of the largest weekly cattle auctions in the region. Barnhart and his team sell cattle three days a week- cows and bulls on Monday, calves and stockers on Tuesdays and Yearlings on Wednesday.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
