Cattle Prices

[Nice]

Heres a question for you guys with beef cattle. When you sell 1/4 or halves do you just price it based on live weight off the Live Cattle CBOT futures? I have a few ready and this is the first time I"ve sold cattle. What is an estimate of lbs meat compared to live weight?
 

[rrlund]

I sell the bulk of them through United Producers. If somebody wants one for slaughter,I sell live weight,based on what I've been getting through U.P. I've got an electronic scale and weigh them just before I deliver them to the slaughter house.
A good fat beef breed will hang 60-65% of live weight,then cut 60-65% of hanging weight.
If you want to sell hanging weight,they say to figure 220% of live weight price.
If you click the link,you can choose the location nearest to you and get this weeks actual prices.
United Producers Inc

 

[Nice]

Thanks so much rrlund, I looked over the site and got my local results
 

[caseyc]

I sell 5 cents above my local live weight price. Customer pays their own butch cost. Usually butcher 3-4 every year and I always have demand for more.

Casey in SD
 

[caseyc]

I sell 5 cents above my local live weight price. Customer pays their own butch cost. Usually butcher 3-4 every year and I always have demand for more.

Casey in SD
 

[hayray]

I take it a step further and sell the beef packaged at $5.75 a pound. Rrlunds numbers concur pretty much with what I get. Another way to look at it is a steer will yield about 35% packaged meat from live weight and heifers can be 5-10% lower yield - these figures would be for fat corn fed choice type animals. Cutting percentages are usually higher on a leaner select and forage finished type beeves.