Summer Heat Cools Off Lamb Trade
The summer doldrums set in on the lamb market this week as seasonal hot weather reduced the demand for lamb at retail. Hot weather is also reducing the efficiency of lambs in feedlots, pushing up costs of gain and forcing operators to cut back on inputs.

Feeders, Packers In Standoff, $2-3 Dividing Them At Midweek
Packers and feedlots were staring each other down at presstime over a $2-3 chasm, buyers offering $63 and sellers holding firm for at least $65. In such a case, $64 or a little better would usually buy a lot of cattle, but the mood in the trade Wednesday suggested that wouldn’t happen this time.

Plains Feedlot Sales

Range Sales

Risk Management All The More Critical With New Farm Bill
The new federal "Freedom to Farm" bill has been dubbed "Freedom to Fail" by its detractors. For farmers who’ve grown dependent on subsidies and price guarantees, whether it turns out to be the former or the latter may depend on how well they learn to manage risk.

Rate Of Cow Herd Liquidation Could Be Highest Since 1978
Government statisticians say bad weather and poor grazing conditions are prompting cattlemen to liquidate their cow herds at what could be the highest rate since 1978.

Outdated Delaney Clause Faces Another Effort To Force Reform
For nearly 40 years, the American food industry has operated under a policy that prohibits the processing of food containing the smallest trace of various pesticides. Scientists have considered that policy technologically outdated for years, but bureaucrats and activists have repeatedly stymied reform.

Lacey Wants NCBA Summer Meet Focus Diverted From Checkoff
At its mid-year conference in Nashville, Tenn., the National Cattlemen's Beef Association may be fighting the same battle as when it was born in strife at San Antonio, Texas, last January.

Price And Health Fads Hurt Beef Consumption
Many people prefer beef to other meats but will not eat it because they think they shouldn't, nutritionist Ann Grandjean says.

Some Wheat Growers May Get Chance To Try New Insurance
Wheat growers in Kansas, Oklahoma and elsewhere could get a chance to purchase new crop insurance policies that protect against the twin perils of lost yield and lost income.

Justice Department Shameless In Diminishing Citizen Rights
No one would ever mistake Attorney General Janet Reno for Goldilocks of nursery story fame, but in two recent filings Reno's attorneys have taken what can only be characterized as a Goldilocks approach to the ability of citizens to sue for the loss of Constitutional rights. It would appear that for Reno's attorneys, no argument is too absurd to use to frustrate the ability of federal courts to perform their most important function: determining the meaning of the Constitution.

New Meat Inspection Program Gets Qualified Industry Nod
President Clinton used his weekly radio address Saturday to announce the most sweeping changes in 90 years in the rules governing meat and poultry safety.

Ag Bankers, Producers Warn Lawmakers Of Drouth Effects
Bankers, ranchers and farmers told a congressional committee on Saturday that financial problems caused by the lingering drouth eventually will affect the entire economy if appropriate steps aren't taken soon.

Experts Insist Boll Weevil Eradication Is Working Well
It has been two years since the Southern Rolling Plains Boll Weevil Eradication program began, and experts say weevil numbers have dropped almost 98 percent compared to historical averages documented prior to the program.

Drouths, Federal Drouth Aid Both Often Slow To Develop
Unlike hurricanes or floods, drouths are slow to develop and sometimes hard to recognize — a key reason Washington's response to drouth sometimes takes months or never comes at all.

Clinton Eco-Campaign Stunt Injures Eagle
A Fourth of July campaign stunt designed to bolster President Clinton’s hold on the environmental vote backfired when an eagle he released into the wild with great fanfare was promptly attacked by a pair of ospreys and splashed into the sea.

USDA Sets New Date For Sheep Referendum
USDA has scheduled a second national referendum on the Sheep and Wool Promotion, Research, Education and Information Order for Oct. 1.

A&M Beef Course Set For August 12-15
The 1996 Texas A&M University Beef Cattle Short Course set for August 12-14 will focus on management strategies for better times.

Intensive Grazing Tour In Nebraska
An intensive grazing seminar and tour has been scheduled for Saturday, July 27, on the Brush Creek Ranch near here. Registration begins at 8:15 a.m. and the program will run until 4 p.m.

Feds’ Reserve Grain Finally Ordered Sold
It took almost a month of Congressional cajoling and may be too little too late for many stockmen, but the Clinton administration has finally agreed to release some of the grain USDA has been stockpiling for emergencies like the drouth that has been going on in the Southwest for the better part of three years.

Easier Beef Movement May Fall To Politics
Politics may be the greatest threat to proposed legislation repealing the federal prohibition on interstate shipments of meat and poultry from state-inspected processing companies, says South Dakota Agriculture Secretary Dean Anderson.

Beef Output Largest In Past Two Decades
Beef output during the first half of 1996 is expected to be the largest since the industry’s all-time high in 1976, says the Kansas Beef Council.

Holiday-Week Feeder Cattle Trade Unsettled Most Places
Feeder steer and heifer prices were unsettled during last week’s holiday-shortened period. The overall trend was generally steady to $1 higher, but some locations were a little weaker. Numbers at many markets were too light to attract much buying interest.

Texas Fed Cattle Prices Took Sharp Jump To $64 Last Week
Slaughter steers and heifers closed $3 to $4 higher in Texas Panhandle and Western Oklahoma feedlot trading during last week’s holiday-shortened period. Trade was active on Tuesday and Wednesday as buyers became aggressive for numbers.

Disease, Parasites Hit By Drouth, Too
There’s a bright side to drouth, if only a small one: it can be just as hard on parasites and disease organisms as it is on everything else.

Angelo Lamb Prices Take Sharp Decline
Compared with the last sale two weeks ago, feeder lambs sold $3-5 lower in a light test this week, and slaughter lambs were untested. Slaughter ewes made up well over 50 percent of the run and sold firm. Two day receipts totaled 20,206 head.

Kansas Direct Feeder Cattle Trade Upward
Feeder steers and heifers sold steady to $1 higher in Kansas direct trade last week, the advance on weights of 700 pounds and up. Weather has been hot and dry except for scattered rain in eastern Kansas. Sales were confirmed on 13,089 head.

OCA Convention Set For July 29-31
The 44th Annual Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association Convention and Trade Show is set for July 29-31 at the Marriot Hotel here.

Corn Acreage Largest Since ‘85, Says USDA
The 80.4 million acres planted in corn this year is the largest since 1985, the Agriculture Department reported late last week. It's up 13 percent from last year.

U.S. Meat Production 6.4% Below A Year Ago
Total red meat production under federal inspection last week was estimated at 663.8 million pounds, 18 percent less than a week earlier and 6.4 percent less than the same week a year ago. Cumulative meat production for the year to date at 22.007 billion pounds was 1.1 percent more than the previous year.

Canadian Cattle Import Rate Slowing Slightly
Slaughter cattle imports from Canada into the United States slowed slightly the first part of June but are still much higher than a year ago, says a report by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Cattle imports from Canada during the two week period ending June 22 totaled 53,017 head compared to 51,251 a year ago, with most of the increase in the northeastern states. 

Junction Lambs Off, Most Angoras Steady
Feeder lambs sold $1 lower, slaughter ewes $1-2 higher; Angora goats steady except fat muttons and nannies $1-3 higher; Spanish kids $1-3 lower, nannies steady, billies $1-2 higher. Receipts totaled 5185 head.

Domestic Wool Slow, Aussie Finewools Up
Trading on domestic wool was generally slow last week, limited sales mostly steady. Approximately 75,000 pounds sold at private treaty in Texas, 12-month 64s bringing 65-80 cents grease, f.o.b. the warehouse, crossbred 58s to 62s 50-65 cents and blackface 20-35 cents.

Hindsight

Letter To The Editor

Unregistered Bull in a Hotel Lobby
Choice gleanings from 45-plus years of Unregistered Bull. 
"Well," said John, "I’ve whipped off another letter to my Congressman, but I don’t expect a whole lot of results. I’m beginning to think he’s kinda like the smart hound dog an acquaintance of mine owned one time. He claimed that dog would mind better than any in the country, but when it came to proving it, all he could make that dog do was something the dog wanted to do — like when it was real hot and the dog was full of cornbread, you could tell him to crawl under the porch and go to sleep and he’d do it nearly every time.

On The Edge Of Common Sense
By Baxter Black
How sorry is the cattle market?
Flatter than a hammered flounder...
Deeper than a whale's basement...
Lower than the septic tank on a submarine...
Flat as a three day highway cat...

Pokin' Fun
By Doc Blakely
An ad in the Wall Street Journal said a meat market in New Orleans was buying froglegs and will "contract up to a million."

Shortgrass Country
By Monte Noelke
On the last week of May, late of an evening, Mertzon reeled under volleys of hail stones severe enough to crumple trailer houses and motor vans into jagged piles of metal. Roofs were beat down to the lathes; sleek new automobiles lost every coat of paint down to the bare steel. The only car in town parked outdoors not beaten to smithereens was a 1936 Hudson that deflected the ice like a plate of armor. Home air conditioners faltered and burned out breaker switches; telephone and utility crews were to be days restoring service around town.

Wildlife By Design
By Dr. Dale Rollins, Ph.D.
Where have all the heroes gone? The inception of color TV and politically correct sitcoms hailed the demise of Lucas McCain, but I bid him goodby only begrudgingly. "The Rifleman" was, and still is, one of my heroes. Ditto for Marshall Dillon and Beaver Cleaver. And to prove that print media also loses its legends, the list grew even longer with the retirement of "The Far Side" cartoonist Gary Larson about a year ago.

The Computer & The Cowboy
By C.A. Rodenberger, Ph. D.
Have you seen a beautiful color photo of Elmer Kelton projected on a large screen in an auditorium? I tagged along with my wife, who is a member, to the annual meeting of the Western Writers of America in June at Albuquerque. One of the meetings was dedicated to the use of the Internet for writers. The demonstration used a PC log-on to the Internet and the image was projected via an overhead projector onto a large screen. The session was entitled "Moseying the Internet," and had a panel of western writers discuss their use of the Internet. Several writers now have their own home pages with information about their books.

On Matters ... Equine
By Dr. Jim and Lynda McCall
In the deep South, the summer daylight hours can be so oppressive that most horse events begin about five p.m. Several summers ago, we hosted a nighttime cutting where they started to settle the cattle about dusk. An acquaintance of ours, riding a cowy little mare, came to help. He rode the mare through each bunch of calves; he turned back for the cutters, he held herd; he even showed the mare in a class or two. By three a.m., the mare was spent — sweat pouring off her body, muscles trembling. Her rider pulled his tack and led her over by the barn to hose her off with plans to walk her dry. Unfortunately, it was much too late for this to be a viable plan.

It's The Pitts 
By Lee Pitts
The art of neighborin’ is a concept foreign to most city folk. Urbanites can live beside each other for years without ever sharing pie or its recipe. The folks next door are just people to keep up with. It’s not even called a neighborhood any more ... it’s "the hood." Although that is more apt to describe the residents therein.