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Show rMJvestocle! Los Angeles, California, July 13, 1936 The most talked of fea-' fea-' ture of the cattle markets during the past few weeks has been the wide price differential between market values of grain-fed cattle and grass-fat stock. This season has witnessed the greatest price spread ever known on the Pacific coast and particularly has this been true on the Los Angeles market. mar-ket. At this writing, the general run of so-called grass fed steers are selling at $6.00 to $6.50 a cwt., whereas choice to prime fed steers are selling as high as $9.00 to $9.25. In other words, there is a possible "spread" of three cents a pound between the value of ordinary ordi-nary grass-fat stock and the high quality, thickly fleshed steers that have had a long period on full grain rations. There are a few in the trade who believe that this is a temporary situation, althougt it is extremely doubtful if we will see a greater; price differential than now exists! on the market. It must be con-j sidered that the general run of grass-fat cattle are hardly of the! high quality that California produced pro-duced in 1935, for example. Then too, it must be remembered that the proportion of highly finished dry-lot steers is comparatively small. Should a great many people peo-ple enter the business of finishing steers on grain rations and actually actual-ly marketing such stock in choice to prime condition, there may be some lessening in the price differential. dif-ferential. But it does appear that we are not going to return to the days when here was little or no price differential between grass cattle and well-fed cattle. My opinion based upon many talks with meat packers and meat retailers, is that we shall continue to witness a price differential that will make it worthwhile for many of our western people to give serious thought to mastering the art of finishing cattle in dry lots. That prime cattle may be finished finish-ed on available feeds in the western west-ern country has been proved. Federal graders have stamped the U. S. mark of "choice" and "prime" on many cattle that have been fattened in California, Arizona, Ari-zona, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah and Nevada feedlots. The rations have been made up of feeds that are easily available in the western country, including barley, wheat, dried beet pulp, cottonseed cake and meal, linseed meal and other western produced feedstuffs, in conjunction with high grade alfalfa and grain hays. |