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| In 72 and 73 I was in high school and was jokingly teased in school that I was a 'father' to a few hundred calves of my dads and about the same number to some uncles because I had gone to AI school. My arm was smaller and they wanted me to do all the heifers.....that was the reason they gave anyway! I bring that up because the Maine Anjou 500 to 600 lb heifers we did get a buck a pound for and the Simmy cross heifers around 90. The rest of the calves I remember as being 60 to 65 cents for 500 to 600 lbs. but 74 came along and here comes the price freeze. I didn't quite understand it fully at the time and since have forgotten some of what that was all about but I do remember there being a lot of turmoil. Some auctions and divorces in the neighborhood etc. caused by the stressful times. Steers that were overfed and couldn't get up the chute. Neighbor came and borrowed our portable chute because it was wider because he couldn't get them up the chute in his corral. Another neighbor who had a steer fall though the loading chute cuz it was so big. Two neighbors who were not very big in livestock and were good friends talked each other into putting up a couple silos and one of those little feeding tube things to feed cattle. I am assuming things must have looked pretty bright or those two guys, who were very conservative otherwise, would not have built them. Those silos are still standing but I know for a fact they were NOT filled more than twice and I think only once on the one guys place. Thankfully they didn't lose the farm but they were grain farmers only until they died. When I think back there were many cow calf guys that got wounded in 74 (my dad among them) and then it turned dry for a few years and they eventually had to sell out in 76 because of drought. My dad sold over 300 head of the nicest 3 and 4 yo black baldy cows you could ever want in July of 1976. We had been culling down for 3 yrs and the best were left. They brought 22 cents a lb. the calves on them brought about 40 to 50 dollars a head. There wasn't a blade of grass for 200 miles. My uncles sent theirs to a ranch in Kansas (500 miles) and in the fall of 1977 the bank said "no more' and they said by the time they got settled up with the guy they pretty much gave them to him. Of course as it so many times is, that was the bottom and there were three very good yrs that followed only so many people were left behind. I am getting tired of typing Puff.
Edited by buford 10/5/2014 23:38
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1973
