Fed prices edge up
Fed cattle weekly averages rose by 50 cents-$1 per hundredweight, said Canfax.
Offerings were smaller with about 24,000 head trading, 16 percent less than the previous week.
Most cattle offered were sold because feedlots remained willing sellers.
Some packers appeared to extend their live inventory out to nearly two weeks, but others maintained a seven to 10 day inventory, Canfax said.
There was more interest in the fed cattle set-aside program with 79 bidders participating and the daily average feed cost moving up to $1.31 from $1.26 the previous week.
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Alberta prices June 2 were steers $78.25-$78.75 per cwt., flat rail $131-$132.35 with no heifer trade occurring.
Canfax expected prices should be similar this week as manageable front-end supplies and large kills will keep packers bidding.
The July 13 appeal date for the United States Department of Agriculture and National Meat Association hearings into the live cattle injunction could bring speculation back into the market. Markets tend to be volatile when they don’t know what’s going to happen, said Canfax.
Beef prices fall
U.S. cutouts took a hard hit with the Choice cutout down $7 US per cwt. and Select down $3.75 compared to the previous week.
With Choice now priced at $144 a cwt., boxed beef movement was excellent, increasing by 40 percent over the previous week. That helped support Canadian movement into the U.S.
Barbecue demand should pick up with warmer weather on the East Coast and retailers looking toward the Father’s Day weekend to procure their featured beef items.
The Calgary wholesale for delivery this week is steady to $1 Cdn higher in a range of $134-$136 on handyweight steer carcasses.
Feeder prices down
Larger market volumes and weaker prices characterized the Alberta feeder cattle auction market.
Volume rose nine percent to 25,400 head, more than double a year ago when feeder cattle volumes had already started to dry up.
Steers 400-600 pounds were $1.50-$2.50 lower, with 600-800 lb. animals falling 50 cents-$1 and 800-900 lb. and heavier were steady to $1 lower.
Heifers 500-900 lb. and heavier were steady to 75 cents lower.
D1, 2 cows rose $1 and butcher bulls held steady with cows averaging around $24.25 per cwt. and bulls averaging $21.22 cwt.
Rain will help determine volumes this week, said Canfax.
Areas that remain dry may start to see more cull cows as well as increased movement in feeder cattle.
Also, depending on the number of buyers, last year’s set-aside calves may see a discount. This has happened already in some areas.
D1, 2 cows are expected to remain $20-25 cwt. with young open cows fetching up to $30 if bought for rebreeding. Stock bred cows and heifers in northern Alberta brought between $300-$650, while bred cows in central Alberta were $500-$1,250 depending on quality.
Cow-calf pairs were $1,180-$1,260 on excellent quality but ranged as low as $450 in southern and northern
Alberta.
Bad week for hogs
Hog values continued to drop last week on the cash and futures markets due to weak demand.
Iowa and southern Minnesota hogs spent the week in the range of $49-$50 US delivered to slaughter plants.
The hog supply was adequate and the Saturday slaughter was expected to be smaller than first thought.
The USDA quoted the composite pork carcass cut-out value at $65.36 per cwt. June 3, down from $69.10 on May 27 and the lowest level since late February.
U.S. pork plants were believed to be suffering negative margins by week’s close.
June lean hog futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange hit their lowest price levels in seven months.
“We have more hogs, we have higher weights and I still say that Canadian hog-feeder pig imports, that we started increasing, filled in a little bit of the gap of the lower U.S. numbers,” John Kleist of Kleist AG Consulting told Reuters News Service.
He also noted that post-Memorial Day demand from retailers centred on poultry, adding to the weak tone to pork products.
Ron Plain of the University of Missouri said that so far this year U.S. slaughter is up about one percent, but that has dropped live hog prices by about $5-$7 per cwt. compared to the same time last year.
Lambs stronger
Ontario Stockyards Inc. reported 1,473 sheep and lambs and 154 goats traded.
All classes of lambs sold actively at $10 Cdn. cwt. higher.
Sheep and goats sold at steady to stronger prices.
