Ranchers Working Overtime to Fight Arctic Temperatures

As snow, ice and frigid temperatures hit the middle of the country, the biggest concern right now is the long tail this cold weather could have on livestock, AgDay’s Clinton Griffiths reports.

Getting livestock enough feed to help them through the cold continues to be a major focus, and with calving season underway, this extended cold period has producers keeping a close eye on their herds and many are working overtime to keep calves dry and warm, he says. 

Derrell Peel, Livestock Marketing Specialist at Oklahoma State University, says the cold has been affecting the cattle markets as well. 

“We can get this cold, not real regularly, but it's not uncommon, but it doesn't last very long and so this lasts a long time and it's going to have a number of impacts on the markets. We had a lot of our auction markets actually close part of last week,” Peel says. “Many of them are going to be closed this week. So just in terms of the short run disruptions, we're going to see a lot of that. And we're coming up on just in the next couple of weeks, when we'll be pulling a lot of the wheat pasture cattle off.”

Peel says slow sales, limited movement and cattle coming off of winter grazing could push higher numbers into the market over the next few weeks. He also expects feed lot weights to come down due to this colder weather, Griffiths says.