Feeder Lamb Prices Hold, Fats Softer
Fat lambs at Midwest markets were steady to $3 lower, the direct trade held steady, and fats were little tested elsewhere. Slaughter ewes were mixed, Midwest areas higher but Texas lower.

Fed Cattle Trade Sluggish, Plains Prices Mostly $2 Off
Plains fed cattle trading was a slow, sluggish affair this week, and what little has been done was at prices $2 lower than last week’s $73 top.

Ozona Wool Sales Dull And Softer
Ozona Wool and Mohair Company and Wool Growers Central Storage offered around 212,000 pounds of wool and found little buyer support. Prices were down in sympathy with the declining world market situation, observers said.

Plains Feedlot Sales

Range Sales

Lamb Feeder Started Out Small, Grew Into Packing And Breaking
Taking control of his own destiny has been Larry Rule’s answer to survival in the sheep business. Rule knows every facet of the sheep business because he wears or has worn virtually every hat in the industry, from producer and feeder to packer and breaker. And what he knows, he learned from the ground up.

Cimarron’s St. James Hotel Still Hosts Oldtimey Guests
T.J. Wright had stayed in room 18 of the St. James Hotel here before. According to the hotel registry, he had stayed in the room on three different occasions in 1881. But his last stay may hold the clue to his continued presence more than a century later.

Cow-Calf, Stocker Operators Both Win With Preconditioning
A receiving pen full of stocker calves that suddenly lose their appetite and perkiness and spend time walking the fence and bawling can make their new owner... well, it's scary enough to make him lose his appetite and perkiness and spend time walking the fence and bawling.

Former Exec Makes New Charge: ADM Knowingly Sold Bad Feed
Former Archer Daniels Midland Co. executive Mark Whitacre's accusations that the company knowingly sold tainted cattle feed could prompt more lawsuits against the embattled grain processor, a lawyer in a related case says.

Decades-Old Fight Over Grazing Takes Feds, Landowner To Court
A longtime ranching family has clashed with the federal government over grazing in a dispute that some observers say illustrates how the West has changed. Others say it illustrates how the government has changed.

Income Tax From Drouth Sales Can Be Postponed Under Law
Livestock producers who sold animals this year because of a shortage of grazing, water or other effects of the drouth should remember that payment of income tax on the taxable gain from sales may be postponed, reminds Mike Hardin, Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service tax specialist.

U.S. Beef Sales On Increase In Mexican Market, Says MEF
U.S. beef has taken up residence in a growing number of supermarkets in Mexico this summer, thanks in large part to funding from USDA and the beef checkoff program.

Texas, Other Plains States Stand To Lose In CRP Rewrite
Since the mid-1980s, Texas farmers have been paid by the federal government to keep four million acres of farm land fallow under a program designed to reduce soil erosion, improve water quality and provide wildlife habitat.

Lawmakers Getting Runaround From White House On Land Grab
Still incensed over President Clinton's declaration of a national monument in southern Utah, senators got angrier still when a White House official dodged identifying those who came up with the idea.

Parks Measure Held Hostage To Halt Hearing On FBI Files
A former White House employee has testified before Congress that her colleagues gathered hundreds of FBI files on Reagan and Bush appointees even after their names were deleted from a list used to order the files. To muzzle that line of damaging testimony, the Clinton administration threatened to let a popular national parks system bill die if the hearing was not halted.

Ecos Erect New Roadblocks In Public Grazing Process
Never mind that buffalo by the tens of millions once grazed western rangelands, forded rivers and streams in migrating herds miles wide and many times as long, and in so doing left tons of manure and thousands of trampled carcasses to foul the water.

Pro-Western Residents’ Group Getting Under Activists’ Skin
Environmental activists call them a blustering bunch of land-ravaging rabble-rousers, corporate pawns who intimidate opponents and live in the days when mining, logging and ranching ruled the frontier.

Greens Launch Effort To Amend Constitution
Don Quixote would be proud. Losing credibility with the public and clout in Congress, radical environmental activists have now set themselves a goal of passing and ratifying an amendment to make their agenda part of the United States Constitution.

Activist Criticized For Eco-Hypocrisy
About 50 ranchers and loggers held a demonstration last week against a leading backer of a state ballot measure to force ranchers to fence cattle out of streambeds.

In Minds Of Some, At Least, Harsh Texas Drouth Is Over
The fickle nature of farming probably made it inevitable: Growers who had suffered under the weight of a three-year drouth anxiously waited last month for rain ... to stop.

New Mexico Landowners Want Los Alamos Back
A group of northern New Mexicans is preparing a battle to try to get back hundreds of acres of land that now make up Los Alamos County.

Youngsters Can’t Ride Bulls In San Antonio
Peewee bull riding has been suspended at a Bexar County arena after authorities threatened to file child endangerment charges against the parents of a six year-old champion of the sport.

Beef Co-Op Awarded South Dakota Grant
A group of Northern Plains cattle producers is getting a financial boost from South Dakota in its effort to process and market its own beef.

Feeder Cattle And Calf Prices Mixed Across Country Last Week
Feeder steers and heifers sold mostly steady to $1 higher around the country last week while calves were steady to $2 lower.

Feeder Cattle Prices Varied In Angelo Special Sale Monday
Steers and heifers weighing less than 600 pounds were firm to $1 higher Monday in the season’s seventh special feeder sale at Producers Livestock Auction Co. Heavier weights were weak to $1 lower.

Angelo Lambs Steady, Feeder Cattle Higher
Feeder lambs sold steady, slaughter lambs steady this week, slaughter ewes weak to $2 lower. Receipts totaled 11,886 head, around 55 percent ewes and 20 percent feeder lambs, the balance goats.

Goldthwaite Feeder Lamb Prices Lower
Feeder lambs sold $2 lower, slaughter ewes and bucks $2-3 higher; stock Angora nannies fully steady, muttons steady, slaughter classes steady except thin nannies $1-2 higher; Spanish goats steady. Receipts totaled 5500 head.

Domestic Wool Slow, Foreign Wools Lower
Trading on domestic wool was generally slow under light demand last week. Shearing continued on fall 12-month wools in Idaho, but no sales were confirmed.

Junction Angora Goats Higher, Lambs Steady
Feeder lambs sold mostly steady, slaughter ewes steady; stock Angora nannies $5-6 higher, muttons mostly steady, kids and yearlings steady to $1 higher, slaughter kids and yearlings $1-2 lower, muttons and billies $3 lower, nannies steady; Spanish stock nannies steady, kids and yearlings $2-3 lower, slaughter classes steady. Receipts totaled 10,000 head.

San Saba, Brownwood, Mason Feeders Down
Feeder steers weighing over 500 pounds sold $1-4 lower in Mason, Brownwood and San Saba last week, lightweights suitable for grainfields steady, heifers steady to $3 lower, slaughter cows and bull steady, stock cows and heifers steady. Receipts totaled 3258 head.

Isa Beefmaster Bulls Average $1990 Per Head
Isa Cattle Co. sold 195 Beefmaster bulls for a total of $388,050 and averaged $1990 per head. The first 100 bulls averaged $2565 each.

Better Llano Feeder Cattle Trade Steady
Better grading steers and heifers sold steady, fat and fleshy kinds $2-3 lower, fleshy bull calves off more, yearling heifers $2 higher, slaughter cows and bulls steady. Receipts totaled 676 head.

Fredericksburg Feeder Trade Lower Last Week
Feeder steers and heifers sold $1-2 lower, slaughter cows and bulls steady. Receipts totaled 1140 head.

Milano Auction Offers 1464 Cattle
No comparison of trends available. Receipts totaled 1464 head. Feeder steers: medium and large No. 1 200-300 lbs. $70-78, 300-400 lbs. $63-73, few $74-76.50, 400-500 lbs. $60-67, 500-600 lbs. $54-63, 600-700 lbs. $55-59.

Kansas Direct Feeder Steer Prices Weaker
Feeder steers sold steady to weak in Kansas direct trade last week, heifers steady to firm. Mild and breezy weather has cooperated with the farmers. Sales were confirmed on 3964 head.

U.S. Meat Production 5.2% Below A Year Ago
Total red meat production under federal inspection last week was estimated at 800.8 million pounds, .2 percent more than a week earlier and 5.2 percent less than the same week a year ago. Cumulative meat production for the year to date was .5 percent less than during the same period a year ago at 32,481 billion pounds.

Cuero Thin Feeder Steer Prices Higher
Thin fleshed feeder steers sold several dollars higher, heifers a little lower in active trading. Receipts totaled 2037 head.

Hindsight

Letter To The Editor

Unregistered Bull in a Hotel Lobby
Choice gleanings from 45-plus years of Unregistered Bull. 
"It looks like," said John, "President Truman is mad at the newspapers. First, he gave editors and columnists all over the country a chance to accuse him of saying if newspapers didn’t start saying some nice things about him he was liable to raise their postage rate. I don’t think he is dumb enough to come right out and say anything like that, even if he thought it, but he’s crude enough in his conversation to let the newspaper boys claim he meant to say it.

On The Edge Of Common Sense
By Baxter Black
The USDA has announced it is considering classifying yogurt as a meat for the school lunch program. The reason behind this loony policy change appears to be pressure from special interests to expand meat substitutes for "The Real Thing."

Pokin' Fun
By Doc Blakely
What’s in a name? We have a tendency to forget even famous people unless they have memorable name. Few can recall the deeds of Alf Landon or Millard Fillmore, yet they were famous men at one time.

Shortgrass Country
By Monte Noelke
Pages drop plenty fast going through airports. The itinerary reads: September 16 departure from San Angelo, Texas to San Jose, Costa Rica 6:45 am.; change flights in Dallas/Fort Worth and Miami International to arrive San Jose 8:30 p.m. on the same day.

Wildlife By Design
By Dale Rollins, Ph.D
"You never get a second chance to make a first impression." — Will Rogers
I'm not sure who Will had in mind when he made that declaration, but it may well have been Texas deer hunters.

It's The Pitts
By Lee Pitts
My grandpa always warned me that before I hired any man "I should watch how he eats." I never understood what Grandpa meant until recently.

Out 'N' About
By Jim Harral
Scattered across our country are countless little towns and communities. Some today are little more than a tiny postoffice or perhaps only a highway marker. What we often forget is that each of these has a story to tell, sometimes quite a remarkable story.