What Catde Feeders 



Think of the New AAA 



By LARRY POTTER 



/T^ tlie deln.ate economic balance 



Ol of ly.vS, actions of one i;roup of 

 \^_^ producers (quickly influence the 

 welfare of other groups. That is why, 

 early in February while Congress was 

 ^rooming the surplus crop control bill 

 for passable, Illinois cattle feeders were 

 eagerly studying the proposed act. 



From the declaration of policy of the 

 AAA of I9^S they learned: "It is . . . 

 the policy of Congress to . . . regulate 

 interstate and foreign commerce in cot- 

 ton, wheat, corn, tobacco and rice to the 

 extent necessary to provide an orderly, 

 adeuuate, and balanced flow of such com- 

 modities in . . . commerce through storage 

 of reserve supplies, loans, marketing 

 cjuotas, assisting farmers to obtain . . . 

 parity prices for such commodities and 

 parity' of income. . ." 



How will the orderly, adequate, and 

 balanced flow affect cattle feeders who 

 buy corn.-' And what will stabilized corn 

 prices mean to cattle feeders over a long 

 period ? 



Carl M. Johnson. DeKalb county feed- 

 er, briefly summarized the general feel- 

 ing of feeders w ith this comment : 

 "Stabilized prices will keep the 'in and 

 outers' out. They're the ones that ruin 

 us." 



Carl farms 460 acres of which 194 

 were in corn in 1937. He feeds all the 

 grain he raises each year to approximately 



CARL JOHNSON 



"In and outers will be out." Larry Pot- 

 ter, left, takes a polite peek at Carl's 

 records. 



1J5 steers and SO purebred Holleil Short 

 horn cows. 



Crop yields on the Johnson f.irm. the 

 result of crop rotation plus -100 loads of 

 teed lot manure each year, are unusually 

 high. Carl's entry in the Illinois ten-.Kre 

 corn growing contest produced 106 

 bushels per acre which is an index of 

 the fertility of the entire farm. 



On February 1, C^arl bought "O head 

 of 700 pound "whitefaces" through the 

 Chicago Producers Commission Associa- 

 tion. He plans to feed them until early 

 summer. He is a booster for the H. M. 

 Conway market service published by the 

 National Livestock Marketing Associa- 

 tion and shapes his feeding plans accord- 

 ing to Conway's market analysis. 



Lee Mosher, who lives a mile or two 

 south of Carl, looks at the probable 

 effect of stable corn prices in much the 

 same way that Carl does. Says he. "The 

 new act will help. Cheap corn always 

 makes cheap beef and th,at's not good 

 for feeders. " 



Lee believes that there are not too 

 many cattle on feed, and that the sud- 

 den drop in prices from August to 

 December was brought about by fear. 



"There were too many inexperienced 

 feeders in the game who grew- 'jittery' 

 and shipped before their cattle were 

 ready to sell. In my yO years of feeding 

 I have seen other times when in and 

 outers' were in and got out too quickly 

 for the good of the industry. 



"If we were well enough organized 

 to control the flow of beef to market, 

 the drop would never have taken place." 

 is Mosher's opinion. 



The drop caught Lee with "iO head 

 of feeders in his yards. He had bought 

 the cattle in three bunches, most of them 

 when the top was around $19.'i0 and 

 the average was about $1-4. Tlie first 

 bunch, bought August *i. cost $9.60 per 

 hundredweight; the second truckload 

 cost $8.8'> on August Z'^ and the last 

 bunch came into the fcedlot at SIO on 

 September 1 8. 



The ^0 head were sorted m October 

 and a few choice ones were sold at 

 $15. They aver.iged 1000 pounds each 

 A truckload of "rough ends not worth 

 feeding" longer, weighing 1200 pounds, 

 were marketed in December at $8,90. 

 The last to go weighed liSO pounds 

 and were sold, February ~. for $8 so. 



The gain on the last two truckloads. 





LEE MOSHER 



"Inexperienced feeders 

 and got out." 



grew 'jittary' 



fed largely on 19.^7 corn, cost eight 

 cents per pound. Mosher takes it all 

 with a smile. To him it is part of the 

 game. His guiding philosophy in all 

 i.attle deals, 'see a chance for profit — 

 take it." didn't apply at any time. 



Mosher is a tenant farmer. He rents 

 J80 acres in two farms. He h,is lived 

 on one for 20 years, the other he has 

 farmed for 23 years. To comply with, 

 soil conservation requirements he reduced 

 his corn .icreage from l-U) to 125 acres. 

 He always feeds more corn than he raises. 



Another Dekalb county fc-eder is E. 

 F. Gallagher who owns his 200 acre 

 farm. While he believes as Johnson and 

 .Mosher do about stabilized corn prices 

 keeping grain farmers out of competition 

 with feeders. GalLigher goes a step 

 larthcr. 



"Feeders need three and lour cent 

 margins with fairly cheap corn to make a 

 fair profit feeding cattle. Twelve cent 

 cattle and 75 cent corn would be about 

 right. \\"e can only hope to break even 

 with 60 cent corn. On the other hand, 

 SO cent corn doesn't give much oppor- 

 tunity lor profit when cattle are cheap." 



I Continued on pjge Hi 



MARCH, 1938 



