Spring finally feels like it has made its appearance in Montana. I hope wherever you are reading this from that you have received some moisture and green grass is growing. This past winter did not want to give up its grip up here. April brought many snow showers to Montana and made some treacherous travel and unfavorable calving conditions in this part of the country. Following one of the coldest winters on record, we have started to receive some warmer temperatures and it’s finally starting to green up.
This spring has been busy. Since January, I traveled nearly 30,000 miles in my territory going to cattle sales. This year has been different for a variety of reasons. One of the most unique things of this spring bull sale season (considered January-May in my territory) is the optimism in the market. It seems like we have been talking for years about the cattle market being positioned to see a big increase in prices. After years of hearing the rhetoric and hoping to see the up swing in the market, it seems that we are finally going to realize it.
We have all read the market reports from our local auction markets, seeing the jump in cull cow and bull prices, great demand for feeder cattle, and increased demand for replacement heifers and bred stock. I admittedly have not had time to sit in the auction markets and track these weekly trends, but one market I have had my finger on is the breeding bull market. I have had a lot of questions on how much these bull sales are up, or how much more to expect to pay for breeding bulls. I sat down and compiled sales data from the bull sales I covered in order to get a more accurate depiction of the market in this area and would like to share that information with you, the readers of the Western Livestock Journal.
Those reputable, high-quality seedstock providers who you see advertise in WLJ each week were responsible for selling over 10,000 bulls in this territory (Montana, northern Wyoming, eastern Idaho and North Dakota). These bulls—of all breeds—averaged $6,155 and accounted for over $65 million in sales in the first four months of 2023. This was a 15% increase over the same period in 2022. This segment of the beef industry provides a substantial impact to the rural America economy.
Breaking it down on a breed basis, Hereford cattle were the winners on the highest average with 700 bulls averaging $7,940 this sale season. To no surprise, black Angus saw the largest number of bulls sold with over 6,250 bulls selling at an average price of $6,138. I pulled out three other breeds to track, and the results are: 1,231 Red Angus bulls averaged $5,250, 865 Charolais bulls averaged $5,612 and 738 Simmental bulls averaged $5,833. We did sell other breeds, but I am going to exclude them in this article as there were fewer sales for comparison reasons.
I wanted to share one other observation. Some of the best buys in the sale were found in the first lots of the sale. Most breeders place their better bulls towards the front. Multiple times, bulls later in the day that may or may not have been as high of quality as the front-end bulls, ended up outselling their earlier contemporaries. There is no real insight in this observation, other than it sometimes pays off to buy bulls off the front end of the sale.
I’ve got to admit, I have never been involved in the cattle market when there has been this much optimism. It’s fun to visit with commercial ranchers at these sales who are anticipating their calves to go to market and fetch record values. I am not naive enough to ignore the fact that inputs have gone up at a more rapid rate than the cattle market and we are in a time when it’s simply more money in and more money out, with not a lot left over in the savings account at the end of the day. But I am hopeful that with the way cattle numbers are, we can enjoy these higher prices for at least a couple of years. Consumers have rewarded us for creating higher quality and more consistent products at the meat counter. Hopefully the next couple years will set a new standard for cattle prices, we can get our inputs in check, and see a bit more margin in our business. In the meantime, let’s be thankful for the moisture we have received and continue to pray for timely rain and favorable weather to go along with a better market!
