Bred heifers and young bred cows are selling at record high prices, a response to the record high prices being paid for feeder calves.

Brenna Grant, the Executive Director of Canfax, which is a division of the Canadian Cattle Association, told Kevin Hursh of SaskAgToday.com in an interview that feeder calf prices increased dramatically through the fall run. She says 550 pound steer calves were around the $430 per hundred weight range from April through August before dropping in August and September, then had an 18% rally since then to where it sits at around $475 per hundred weight.

Grant says supply of bred heifers and young bred cows are seeing export demand, noting low supply but high demand, adding the price is dependent on local demand and forage availability.

“There’s lots of variability out there depending on what your local context is, but we’re definitely seeing bred heifers around that $4,900…bred cows at $4,200 and that’s about a $1,500 per head premium over a cull-cow price depending on what your weight is for your cull cows,” said Grant, adding those prices are higher compared to last year.

Hursh asked Grant what signals producers should be watching for to know whether the beef breeding herd is in expansion-mode. She replied, “the first thing before we even can talk about expansion is we have to stop liquidating. Back in May when we got rain, we saw cow slaughter really drop and year-to-date out cow slaughter is down 20 per cent and so that’s the first thing we have to do is stop the liquidation of the cows.”

In terms of expansion, Grant says the real question is “what are cow-calf producers going to be able to do in terms of heifer expansion?”

She says there is interest among cow-calf producers to retain heifers but “a large amount of heifers move into feedlots in April when those cow-calf producers were looking at the grass and saying ‘It’s just not here’ and they moved them into finishing lots before that May-June rain came.”

“Even if we see cow-calf producers retaining this fall, we really do need to see them get out to grass next summer and get bred, and it’s really going to depend on what spring moisture looks like.” added Grant.

You can hear the conversation between Kevin Hursh and Brenna Grant in the “unfiltered” section of SaskAgToday.com.