Executive Summary
Foundation
By Mark Anderson, NALF executive director
Welcome to the 2019 edition of the Herd
Reference Issue. We hope you enjoy the
issue and appreciate your membership and
engagement in the Limousin breed.
It has been a tough calving season for many of
you, given the severe weather since late January.
Extreme cold in the North, tough winter conditions
in the Midwest, and even severe weather in
sections of the South made calving difficult for
many. Bull sales were challenged with the same
conditions early in the sale season and it did in
fact have an impact on sales in February and
March. Cattle producers are typically a tough
lot, and few in todays society would have the
perseverance to continue to keep pushing forward
as many of you have and look towards the future.
Update
levels as feeders enter into the increased supply
of fed cattle through the summer calf fed cattle.
What does this mean for seedstock producers
in the near-term? Most likely it means that
it will be awhile before commercial cattle
markets recover enough to make substantial
rebounds unless we get a dramatic increase in
export markets to potentially help prices until
the market begins to recover on its own. This
most likely means commercial producers will
need to focus on minimizing production cost
and maximizing pounds produced off their
ranches to help offset the market declines.
These factors are actually an opportunity for
those in the seedstock business, who have
worked extremely hard
the old baseball movie, on producing cattle
that excel in weight trait
field of dreams, said,
production while still
“build it and they will maintaining desirable
carcass characteristics
come.” That doesn’t
and holding together
work in the cattle
a good set of maternal
business, we not only
traits on their breeding
stock that can actually
have to build it, we
help the commercial
must take the time to
producer through these
market ourselves and
tougher market periods.
The sun is back out now,
and many are reporting
an exceptional start on
spring grass given all the
moisture in many parts of
the country. As you read
this article, I am writing
it in mid-May to make
deadline for the HRI issue
that is mailed in July. Even
as the grass greens for
spring and the sun returns,
the commercial cattle
our cattle after all the
If you are in the
market is experiencing an
expense and work.
professional seedstock
exceptionally tough break.
business, now is the
As of mid-May, the June
time to utilize the tools and recent technology
live cattle futures have tumbled nearly $13.50/
gains in the attempt to produce seedstock cattle
cwt. over a 3-week period coinciding with nearly
that are not only phenotypically sound, but also
a $20.00/cwt drop on feeder cattle futures. After a
utilize genomic testing and turn in accurate
few years of herd rebuilding the nations cowherd,
performance data to take advantage of single step
weekly federally inspected slaughter levels have
cattle evaluations in the race to breed the best
increased back to the 640,000-650,000 head
12 | JUNE/JULY 2019