I want to take a moment to use this platform real to give some much deserved recognition to a small part of the population that doesn’t get enough praise. The people that drive cow trucks have had to endure some tough driving conditions this winter. Without them doing their job it would be difficult for many of us to buy or sell cattle and establish a market. Thank you drivers.

The Center of Disease Control may as well announce it: Grass fever is starting to become a pandemic. Lightweight cattle were up a few dollars again this week. The heavier feeders were a few dollars lower. Also, a couple of our local hay markets were quite a bit higher.

I went to an auction every day this week, and looked at weighted averages from across the country. I look at the value of gain for every 100 pounds. This week 54% of those breakdowns, per market, had a value of gain that exceeded the cost of gain. The four-weight heifer and a nine-weight had the highest values of gain this week.

It’s time to get the calculator out. Right now is the time where you must know what your cattle weigh, what the market is paying for that weight, and what it is costing you to put weight on. At every sale I was at this week there were some heavier cattle bringing fewer dollars per head than a lighter one, or at very least you could buy some weight for less than you can feed it on for. I am one of those who believes that if you have feed on hand and it cost you so much, and then the market for that feed goes up, you must charge yourself the market price of that feed for what you could resell it for.

With the price of hay going up as much as it has recently, I personally am going to have to charge myself more for the hay I feed and I know my cost of gain is going to go up substantially. The most valuable work time I put in this week is prepping for the coming blizzard and keeping my pencil sharp. That sharp pencil showed me some great opportunities for profit in the market.

The excitement from last week's bred-cow sales has cooled off. Bred cows were at or slightly above slaughter value. Buyers seemed to have no interest in bred cows weighing over 1,550 pounds, nor older cows. An officially calf-hood vaccinated (OCV) heifer weighing in the seven-weight range was the bell ringer. She has a value of $200 less than a bred heifer weighing over 1,100 pounds, and in a lot of cases she’s worth more than a mature bred cow.

This week must have been the week to start buying bucket calves for 4-H projects. I saw some of the bigger baby calves bring between $450 and $700 this week.