OCR Text |
Show fStffi Livestock crop and better than normal range feed conditions. It is expected that in most of the range areas where the 1934 drouth forced heavy marketing last year, there will be an inclination on the part of owners to hold back heifer calves and cows, and also hold back ewes and lambs. Thus, government crop experts are inclined to look forward for-ward to ah even greater reduction in market supplies of both cattle and lambs than might otherwise be the case. Supplies of hogs are expected to remain re-main at low ebb for some time to come. In the meantime, with consumers consum-ers unable to buy normal supplies of pork, prices are expected to remain re-main at relatively high levels, a factor fac-tor which should prove immensely helpful to sustaining or improving beef cattle and lamb prices. With the number of calves in the principal livestock range country the . smallest since 1929 and the number of steers on hand the smallest in over fifteen years, according to federal es- J timates, indications are that receipts ' of all cattle at public stockyards this fall will be smaller than for manyj years. This also means that supplies of stocker and feeder cattle will be , considerably below normal, all of which causes students of the livestock, markets to believe that we are in for ! a continuation of the present strong-1 er trend in cattle prices. j The demand for stocker and feeder ' cattle is very active at this time but buyers are inclined to be more cau- j tious and this attitude may have some effect on later market prices. As it appears to this writer, middle western west-ern farmers will be active bidders for feeder cattle in view of the practical certainty of a large corn crop this fall in most parts of the corn belt. There is only one outlet for most of the corn and that is through the medium me-dium of livestock feeding. Much of the corn that in normal years would go into pork production probably will be diverted to beef fattening. There is a tendency now for feeder buyers to compete with slaughterers for fleshy cattle that ordinarily would go directly into beef channels. As for the lamb feeding situation, buyers are having trouble in locating supplies of feeder lambs due to the j fact that a large proportion of the range lambs fattened on the range. This is due to a smaller late lamb |