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Show ,k.SituatiQjx,J JttXMEMSr r Los Angeles, January 27. Se.vere winter weather in the Intermountain country may have an important bearing bear-ing in reducing surplus lamb production. pro-duction. Reports from Utah, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico indicate heavy death, 'losses among old ewes, a result of deep snows, extreme cold and shortage of feed. Added to this situation, the breeding season was not satisfactory because of early blizzards. Pospects for early lambs in California Cali-fornia are very promising. While feed was very scarce on ranges, owners resorted to use of supplements, supple-ments, and ideal weather prevailed during the breeding season. With rainfall above normal in all parts of the state, a world of good range feed is assured and it seems likely that California will not only produce as many lambs as last 'year's record crop, but there will be a much larger proportion fattened on the range. Cattle and hog markets continue very unsatisfactory and the first month of the new year has brought little to encourage optimism in the ranks of stockmen. Cattle in the third week of January reached the lowest levels in many years, and hog prices dropped back to December low time records for this century. A peculiar feature of the market at Los Angeles has been the broad and active demand for cows and heifers, heif-ers, which are now selling relatively close to steers. Practically all grades grad-es of shestock are higher than a month ago, clue largely of course to the scarcity of such stock on the market, and also because of the demand de-mand for low priced meats. The fact that marketing of shestock has been of small volume encoui-ages market observers to believe that there is a scarcity of breeding stock in the western wes-tern states. It would not be at all surprising if an acute shortage of beef cattle would not be apparent "before the close of the year, taking the western states as a whole. Such a shortage does not appear likely during the next 90 days, however, as thousands of cattle are still in feedlots all over the Southwest. Many of these cattle will be shipped west, instead of east. Feedlot supplies of cattle are above normal in Texas and Arizona but numbers of cattle in feedlots and on the range in California are believed to be far short of normal. |