We took our steer to the auction barn last Friday. I would have loved to keep him. I mean that was the plan. We wanted to have him for our own freezer in December of 2023. But, unfortunately the rising cost of feed along with the drought we needed to cull some animals and bring in some revenue. He was the ideal choice. We need the young females to keep the herd going. We will just have to replace beef in the freezer in 2023 with more pork.
He weighed 695 pounds. We received $1.31 a pound for him. I am not sure how cow producers get so little money per pound and yet beef is so expensive at the grocery store. After paying $37.54 in commissions and fees we netted $872.91. That is not a lot of money, but it will pay for feed for this winter and we will have one less animal to be on the food bill.
Loading him into the stock trailer was easy. Dropping him off at the auction barn was hard. He lived on a small farm with his mom, dad, and cousins. He was hand fed daily. And today he was being dropped off to be sold with over 2600 other cows. I am sure he was scared and confused. It broke my heart. I wanted to cry.
Being a steer, he was mostly likely bought by a buyer to go to be fed out on a feed lot before being turned into beef for the grocery stores. Small family farms help to feed America everyday. It was a bittersweet day.
Apparently, there are a lot of small farmers in our same predicament in Texas. Take a look at the video below.
We are still facing this drought. The grasses in the pasture are turning brown and are not growing with vigor. The garden is barely producing crops. The heat is excessive. I can't remember when we have had such a summer with so many days of triple digit heat. It is going to be a tough summer. We are hoping and praying for rain.
May we all have a reprieve from this drought soon.
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