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Feeder Cattle Prices
Highest in 11 Years
Blacksburg, Virginia feeder cattle prices averaged $31 a hundred pounds during 1969, for an 11-year high. Not since 1958, when prices also averaged $31, have feed-lot replacements been so high.
“The price levels are calculated through cattle auction activities conducted at special graded sales throughout the state,” explained K. C. Williamson, Virginia Tech extension livestock specialist.
Williamson and other members of Tech’s animal science department assist cattlemen in grading, sorting, and otherwise preparing the animals for the annual, fall-time nationally famous Special Graded Sales. Cattle offered at the sales are sorted into small groups of identical grade, weight and sex. One result of the annual activity sees feed-lot operators finding it easier to manage such cattle and often willing to pay bonus prices for the animals. At 39 sales held in Virginia this past year, 39,592 head moved at ui average $31 a hundred pounds. \lso during 1969 some 24,759 yearling feeders, sometimes called itockers, were moved through 30 ales. Prices reached their highest peak at an average $28.80 a lundred pounds. At the Special Graded Sales this past year, steer calves moved at 534 a hundred pounds average. Heifer calves brought $28,10 a hundred pounds. The combined average was $31. Steer calves weighed an average 481 pounds; nine pounds under the average for the previous year. Heifer calves scaled in at 440 pounds as compared to an average 447 pounds a year earlier. The weight decline was surprising, especially in view of Virginia’s lush pasture situation during the 1969 summer. If steers and heifers were combined, the average Virginia Feeder calf weighed 460 pounds, brought $31 a hundred pounds and had a gross value of $142.60.
In yearling steers, the average was 718 pounds, a decrease of seven pounds from 1968’s 725 pounds and 24 pounds under the average of 1967 yearlings.
Despite the lighter weight, yearling steers grossed $206.68 a
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