Was your Dad one of the cattle feeders, that held his cattle off the market, during the "Nixon price controls on meats" ?  I knew a cattle feeder that got into problems at that time.  It all started in 1972 with the Great Grain Robbery by the Russians.  Also playing into this was that Nixon took us off the Gold Standard.  After these events took place, inflation took off and grain and meat prices shot up.  The traders on the Board of Trade were speculating on meats, especially beef.  The price in the store was inflating at a rapid rate.  Nixon decided to freeze beef, lamb and pork prices for 60 days, to get rid of the speculators.  I believe this was in 1973.  The cattle feeder that I knew and others, decided to hold their animals off the market, until the freeze was lifted.  They were assuming that fat cattle prices would shoot up.  Instead the prices dropped like a rock, and the cattle feeders were holding all these cattle that were ready for market.  So they decided to feed them for some time longer to see if the prices would come up.  Prices did not come up.  The cattle feeder I knew had about 2000 head.  By the time they realized they had to sell them, they were weighing between 1800 and 2000 lb. each.  When they tried to find buyers for these heavy cattle, the packers did not want them, because their kill equipment would not handle them.  When they finally found a packer to take them, they had to take more of a discount.  Plus when they got ready to load them on the truck, some of the cattle would not load, because their legs gave out before they got on the truck, due to their excess weight.  This was a regular disaster for this cattle feeder,  who was unable to get back into feeding cattle, because of the money he had lost.