Cattle activity about to pick up

It's endemic in the cattle business that the cows go out to summer grazing about May 1 and not much happens until they come back in again about September 1. Those dates vary a few weeks, one way or the other, according to local customs and moisture conditions, but in a nutshell--that's how things go.

That means that in the next two weeks, local auction markets that took the summer off, or went on an every-other-week schedule for the summer, will be back in business. For cattle traded in the summer on satellite video sales, on-line or through order buyers, delivery dates are about to start.

The whole cycle of cattle marketing is about to begin. Purebred bull, and particularly fall female, auctions on the ranch are starting to be advertised, and breeders are starting to take inventory of what they need to buy or sell. As with every fall, there are some whole-herd dispersion sales, either because the owner is retiring or is going to start over because his current cow herd is fully depreciated for tax purposes.

On the non-purebred side, farmers are starting to look for cattle to put out for fall and winter grazing, either on crop residues like corn stalks or pasture that wasn't harvested for the last cutting of hay.

In the commercial cattle industry, the trend in recent years has been to sell on the summer video sales, where prices are usually higher, for fall delivery. The fall feeder cattle runs through local auction markets have trended smaller as a result.

But this season in many ways is the start of a new year for cattlemen, when some livestock depart and some new ones come in, and the whole production cycle starts all over again. Let the fun begin.