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September 2026 09/02/26 1:11:00 PM
9-1-2026
The end of august closed out with warm, but very humid weather. The 4th cutting alfalfa we have messed with has taken 6 or 7 days to get it baled. The hay would feed ok, but still has 25-30% moisture. I would maybe flip it early counting on the sun and wind to get it up in the afternoon, but the humidity would never get below 65% and the several days it wasn’t below 70%. The alfalfa hay just won’t bale at that much humidity. When it goes into the lower 50% range, you can bale it dry under 20%. We finally finished baling, but it was bleached bad and still very nice leaf quality. I kicked a lot of gravel, growled around more than normal, but with the boy’s patience we got it done right! The forecast is hot, hot, hot for a few days now and a little chance of showers. Hopefully the wind blows a little to get all the stock through it ok!
Saturday had a big run of hogs again. The fat hogs topped at $0.91 on a couple good outside 300# colored hogs. The bulk of the good butchers were bringing $0.70 to $0.80. White confinement hogs sold at $0.62 to $0.65. Sows were mostly $0.65 to $0.67 over 500lb and $0.50 to $0.60 for under 500lb. The boars sold from $0.05 to $0.10. The feeder pigs were lower with just a few reaching up to a dollar per pound.
The sheep and goat market remained very strong for the end of the August. The 40lb to 60lb kids topped at $4.30. The bulk was at $3.75 to $4.00. Nannies were mostly $1.90 to $2.50 per pound. Big billies were $2.00 to $2.50. Lambs weighing 70lb to 90lb were $2.85 to $3.00 and good run of fat lambs this week selling at $2.50 to $3.00 and good run of at lambs this week selling at $2.50 to $2.80 per pound. The cull ewes sold from $1.25 to $1.40. A couple packages of middle-aged open ewes, some white faced and 15 more black faced sold at $280.00 per head.
The outside sale was very good sized this week. Small squares sold from $2.50 to $6.00. Big round bales sold from $10.00 on some very woody seasoned 4ft bales up to $55.00 on the nice hay. The big squares ranged from $25.00 to $50.00. There were several bales here this week. The miscellaneous sale is almost out of control! Boy there was a massive amount of items out front this week! Colonel Derek was on staff again this week and worked through the 2.5 hrs of sale in good form. I helped in for about 45 minutes and the market out there continues to be strong with a very large crowd. Some folks were here for the first time and others rarely miss a week!
The cattle sale had baby cales selling at $800 to $1300. No dairy calves this week. The first calf black heifer pairs sold at $4800. The pairs were weighing 1075lb. The 3r period 3yr and 4yr old cows sold at $3600 to $3900. The weigh cow market was another $3.00 to $3.00 lower with a large number of cows selling from $1.50 to $1.60. The lean high yielding cows sold to a top of $1.85. Turn outs and heiferettes sold at $2.00 to almost $3.00 per pound. The top bull sold at $2.30 this week.
We jumped in the plane with pilot Ben, Rachelle and my granddaughter Clara and went to Forest City, IA on Sunday for the Iowa Hereford tour. It was a great 50 minute flight up and a 30 minute drive over to the first stop. We had a coffee and a roll, then headed to look through some cows and calves. It was pretty flat country up there, not many cows. The cows were in good shape and was able to look at some calves out of different sires. The next stop was a commercial cow/calf operation at Flying H Rach near Sheffield, IA. These folks were making F1 baldies and some registered angus. They had an outstanding set of baldie calves all weaned up and kicked out looked awesome. They market all their calves through a livestock market and have sold the heifer calves at over $300 plus of their steer mates! It was a great stop and seeing young folks building equity quickly with the Hereford/Angus cross baldie calve! We went onto lunch at Belmond with a very good buffet lunch and after the annual meeting and forum we were back in the air headed home. We were 3.5hrs away from home and in 50 minutes we were home. It really makes a short day out of what could have been a long one.
We will see how hot it gets towards Saturday, but should have some nice yearling feeder cattle in for this Saturday’s sale to start the month off. If the mid 90’s are still around we may adjust everything to next weekend.
Have a dandy week!
8-26-2026
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