Impact Of Captive
Supplies Apparent

AMARILLO — A USDA wrap-up of Plains feedlot volume for the reporting week ending Thursday, March 19, provides an object lesson in the power of captive supplies.

Facing a slightly stronger carcass beef market and weather-related supply shortages, feedlots priced cattle $1-2 higher for the week at $64-65. Packers were able to resist those prices, however, and cash trade was essentially nonexistent from Monday through Thursday.

The week’s total cash trade in the Texas Panhandle was only 41,900 head by USDA count, almost all of it the previous Friday. Captives made up the other 30,100 head, or 42 percent of total movement. The same percentage applied to Colorado’s total 29,650-head movement.

Captives made up even more of the Kansas trade, accounting for 19,300 head, or 53 percent, of the total run of 36,100 there. Nebraska, traditionally less dominated by captive deals, reported only 19 percent, but that was twice the level of a year ago and in line with week-in, week-out levels elsewhere.

Throughout the Plains reporting area stretching from Texas through Wyoming, captives supplied an average of 37 percent of the week’s overall 204,750-head movement.