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Factors affecting calf value
By Drovers news source
| Monday, July 12, 2010
During the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009, Kansas State University researchers collected market data on 8,200 lots comprised of more than 84,000 feeder cattle marketed through cattle auctions in Dodge City, Kan. and Carthage, Mo. Data recorded for each transaction included lot size, sex, color, breed, condition, fill, muscle, frame size, weight uniformity, freshness, horn presence, time of sale, weight, and price. In addition to details of individual transactions, the researchers collected a time series of feeder cattle futures prices to approximate market conditions.
In this study, cattle buyers paid $3.10 per hundredweight premiums for Angus and $2.72 premiums for Angus-Hereford crossbred calves than for the base Hereford-influenced calves. Dairy influenced calves earned the greatest discounts at $12.22 below the base, followed by Longhorn influenced at $10.86 below the base.
Heavily muscled calves earned premiums of $6.62 per hundredweight and extremely heavily muscled cattle topped the base by $5.25. Buyers discounted small-framed calves by $5.98 below the base, but only paid a modest premium of $0.75 to large framed
calves. Health is a critical component of value and buyers discounted groups of calves they perceived as unhealthy by $6.31 per hundredweight compared with the base.
Other factors including sex, body condition, weight uniformity, lot size, gut fill, sale location, and time of sale also affected pricing.
