The cattle market appears to have found a short-term top during the first week in June. The futures market after vaulting higher early in the week met considerable resistance and began to come under selling pressure by mid-week.

These are difficult times for hog producers with record high feed costs. We often get the question, “if I am losing money on every pig, when should I sell them?”

The seasonal bias is for a top at this time of the year with prices drifting lower into the fall. Therefore, producers should use the current strength in the market to lock-in or move inventory.

The livestock markets have experienced a strong rally during the first week of May due in part to strong export business and speculation.

One item I have been suggesting to pork producers is to evaluate their marketing weights. This is a good idea to do occasionally regardless of the financial situation, but is especially important with the current high feed costs.

The next few weeks will be significant for the direction of the cattle market into the summer months. Producers should be on alert to lock-in summer inventories on the first signs of weakness developing in the market.

“It’s sort of like making Kevin Garnett one of the best professional basketball players in the world. That took some time, just as it takes time to build the genetics of your herd, too.”

With competitive meat supplies abundant, the likelihood that beef cutouts could surpass their resistance area of $150 per hundredweight is not good in the months ahead.

In some countries it has been found that people exposed to livestock — including pigs, cattle and horses — are at higher risk of carrying methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus in their noses, and therefore are likely to be at elevated risk of developing MRSA infections.

Sitting with nearly 100 people March 14 in the Renville County Commissioner’s Chamber at the county office building, I witnessed a most interesting demonstration of grass-roots activism.

The cattle market has not had much good news lately, and prices have slipped accordingly as we finish out the last week of March.

The livestock markets have not started March on a very positive note. Both cash cattle and cash hogs have been under pressure as prices have slipped for the first few weeks of the month.

Glycerol could serve as an energy source for pigs, but limited research has been reported on its nutritional value in swine diets. Preliminary research done in Iowa with nursery pigs and growing-finishing pigs suggests that glycerol contains nearly as much energy as that found in corn.

I climbed aboard the Revier Feedlots 1994 International Eagle hitched to a 40-foot Trail King live bottom trailer at 7:30 a.m. Feb. 13. Forty-four miles later Jim Schweinfurter piloted this big rig into the “trucks only” entrance to the Bushmills Ethanol plant in Atwater.

As we start March, cattle prices have rallied slightly back to the top end of the range they have been in for the past several months. Tighter numbers have helped produce this firmness, along with increasing boxed beef cutouts. With this increase in beef cutouts, however, the volume in the boxed beef has dropped off once again as the prices increased.

With the packer margin continuing to remain just barely satisfactory, their bids for live inventory are tentative at best, thus the sluggish cash trade over the past several weeks.

Although the initial reaction of pork producers in times like these may be to look at cutting corners, the best plan is to evaluate the various areas of costs and returns, and determine how to more efficiently produce pork on the farm. One area to evaluate is energy usage and expense.

The cattle market continues to struggle as prices have remained defensive through the first month of the new year. Beef demand has been a real drag on the overall market as boxed beef trade has continued to be sluggish forcing the packer to scrutinize their bidding for live inventory.

Chronic wasting disease and tuberculosis are two concerns elk breeders face, but according to Tom Gidlewski, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, they are testing as many animals as possible to keep the numbers down.