I don't understand dairy mentality ---------- I have yet to hear one on here rail about the teachers and healthy living community who have contested for several years how bad red meat and dairy are for health. Our school boards and administrators have been listening to them, why does dairy keep still. Count the number of gallons of milk that go through the check out line compared to the 12 and 24 packs of soda in an afternoon. Milk is cheaper but not many going through the line can figure that out.
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Point is -------- seems to me that dairy has bigger problems than cost of inputs.
Fat cattle sure do------- cost of corn is not why the herd is down ------ not because of pastures have been broken out to raise 200 bu corn. Three years(in some areas 5-8 years) of drought has taken more cows out of the herd than all the other reasons combined.
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observation ------- for years I watched feedlots adjust inventory up and down based on the ability to feed at a profit. Yet last year at $7+corn and high feed, for several months, We just kept feeding. If a lot emptied a few pens it was because they couldn't find the cattle. And several lots started feeding holsteins instead of the feeders that were not available.
Sure makes a difference who owns the cattle in the pen, doesn't it?
Death loss from weather is a bad diseaster, but in some of the high plains pasture countries it has been dry so long that we may see some very extreme events repeat for a few years ----------- assuming we haven't repealed the law of averages.
--------Wait, that may just not work anymore with out a government employee to administer it- ------- the law of averages.......
