I wish I could get near that price here. How far are you from the feedlots?
No kidding.
My ranch is about 70 miles from that sale. There are a lot of feedlots 20-50 miles the other side of that sale. Some are big ones. Of course they aren't putting 450 pound calves into the feedlots. They will be wintered and then go to grass in the spring. They will go to the feedlots to finish mid summer as 800-900 pound yearlings.
In the PNW there seems to be major feedlots any place where there is a potato processing plant. Moses Lake, Pasco WA, Hermiston, Boardman OR, Nampa ID. They feed the potato waste along with other things. Where I turn off the freeway on the way to this sale I am just across the river from Idaho. They grow a few potatoes in Idaho.
There is little or no grazing from now until mid to late April. But there is thousands of acres of irrigated hay. The hay is raised in rotation with the potatoes.
Well I didn't buy anything today. Those 400-425 pound heifers were selling for $1.66. In the 5 hours I was there they probably sold 2,000 feeder calves. I bid 6 times. Came in second twice. The other times I wasn't even close. I quit bidding and they kept going for another 20 cents or more. I think I have hand prints on my rear end from sitting on my hands. There must be good grass in California this year.