Why Beef Prices Are at Historic Highs and What It Means for Producers

In this episode, Trevor Radcliff examines the current state of the beef industry, discussing the key factors driving cattle prices, herd dynamics, and management decisions that impact profitability. Learn how market trends, quality genetics, and innovative production practices are shaping the future of beef production and what producers can do to stay competitive.

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Transcript

Chris Radke (01:40) 

Hello and welcome to AK Podcast, where we explore science and nutrition by livestock care and management with the best and the brightest in the business. I'm your host, Chris Radke, part of the Sales Team here at Agri-King, and with me today is the Director of Field Services and a member of the Sales Management team, Mr Mike Donaldson. Mike, how you do buddy? 

Mike Donaldson (01:59) 

Having a great day, Chris. How's your how's your day going? 

Chris Radke (02:04) 

it's wonderful. It's getting to be summer, so we're having a good time. 

hey Mike, who's with us today and what are we talking about? 

Mike Donaldson (02:10) 

Well today we're gonna dive back into the world of beef. We've got one of Agri-King's leading beef on farm nutrition consultants with us, Trevor Radcliff. I'm gonna let Trevor give you a little bit of an introduction, as much of his journey through life in Agri-King as he chooses, and then we'll get down to the hard questions. Thanks for being with us today, Trevor. 

Trevor Radcliff (02:32) 

Thanks for having me, appreciate it. 

Mike Donaldson (02:36) 

So so tell us a little bit about your background, what's got you to where you are? 

Trevor Radcliff (02:41) 

so I'm from Kentucky and I kinda grew up in the beef world. s grew up on cow/calf farm. went to Eastern Kentucky and got a bachelor's there and then actually went and did dairy stuff up in Michigan for a few years and COVID hit and it was probably one of the best things for my Agri-King career. I was able to start rolling in some beef nutrition and then 

Long story short, the opportunity came up to move back home and so me and my wife moved back home to Kentucky and now we just go wherever Agri-King will let us and feed beef cattle. So w most of my business is in Kentucky, Michigan, and Iowa. I'd have some business in Tennessee and I could kinda go wherever wherever the leads take me, to be honest with ya. 

Mike Donaldson (03:33) 

And and we appreciate that. And I know your producers that you work with appreciate you the ability for you to show up and help them out. to start out with, give me a little bit of insight. The the prices we're seeing on beef right now, whether it's for buying calves or for what they're selling, are off the charts, maybe historic highs. What has gotten us to this point on those prices being so outrageous? 

Trevor Radcliff (04:02) 

Well, I think there's a couple of different things. Number one is sheer inventory. I mean, we're the lowest cow numbers that we've been and I I can't quote the year, but since the early fifties and and it there's not really any sign of it coming back yet. So that's why the prices are where they are. one thing the thing that's our saving grace is thanks to the dairy guys, I mean really is the beef on dairy. 

And I and I think the beef industry is is their saving grace as well with calves where that what they cost. that that's one of the reasons. I think it's as high as it is. The other reason is sheer quality. I mean, there's nobody in the world that is making the quality beef that we are g that we are making right now. And it's actually getting better, one because of genetics, but two, just because of days on feed. The price of these cattle are so high. 

That to actually make it pencil out, they have to be two hundred pounds bigger than they did a few years ago. So instead of that average being, you know, a thirteen fifty, fourteen hundred pound steer, now these cattle have to be sixteen hundred, sixteen fifty to make money because the break even is at a fifteen fift fifteen, fifteen fifty body weight. So on a break even, so pounds pay and feed is cheap. Sometimes it's not that way, but right now it is, and that has been 

and that that is another driving factor for the price of where it's at. Quality's there and quantity is not there. So both of those together, your your consumers are still willing to pay for this quality beef that we're making that is being made right now. if we run into the issue where the quality's not there or the price goes up much more, 

I don't know what that looks like. I think that could be a problem because we're we're at the point right now, not to get into politics or anything like that, but gas is fairly high. So there's there's a there's a limit where people are going to leave the beef and leave buying beef at the grocery store to buy something cheaper because they have to be able to get to work. 

Mike Donaldson (06:18) 

Mm-hmm. 

Trevor Radcliff (06:18) 

You 

know, some people that's not a problem. They want a stake, they go buy a stake. But in the grand scheme of things, the the percentage of people that they have to make that decision is is a lot higher than the people that it doesn't matter. 

Mike Donaldson (06:32) 

But you mentioned that the the the cow herd is at historic lows. What's been the what's what's brought us to that point that that herd has dropped in size to where it is? 

Trevor Radcliff (06:45) 

Yeah, and I and I'll just there's a lot of points to each thing. So again, there's a couple of different couple of different reasons. One, I mean you can talk about drought, weather's I mean, weather's probably the number one reason why. I mean, when there's no feed, no grass, no hay. 

Cows gotta be sold and those cows a lot of those cows just go to a kill, and they get knocked and they're not it's not like they're moving from, say, Oklahoma and they're moving to where grass is. No, those producers a big majority of those cattle are 

are getting sold and they're going and not coming back anywhere. They're they're done. So when you leave when you lose such a sh large number, you can't build those back. So that's the number one I I'll say number one reason is probably drought related. and then the other thing related to that is I I know for example in Florida, like I talked to some producers down there and 

Big guys they come in and say, Hey, we're gonna give you X amount of dollars, whatever that dollar figure is. They don't have the cows because they've been in a drought or they sold the cows or we're down on numbers. Hmm, okay. Let's sell this land that we've had forever. We bought it for say numbers, I'm just throwing numbers out, they're not accurate. But say two thousand dollars an acre long time ago and now you're getting twenty-five thousand dollars an acre and you've got an eight, ten thousand acre ranch. 

That's hard to say no to, you know? So when building when it gets sold that way and it gets cut up and even in Kentucky here, it gets all these farms are getting sold and then getting cut up for f on five acre tracks and it's they're getting sold for eight, nine thousand dollars an acre as a whole farm and then they're getting sold as twenty five to thirty thousand acre as a five acre track. So when those turn into five acre tracks, the cows are not going on anymore. 

Mike Donaldson (08:46) 

Yeah. 

Trevor Radcliff (08:47) 

You 

know, i it's it's it's gonna be a house and someone with their two horses or their two cows or a couple of goats or alpacas, you know, those guys they just they are moving from wherever they're moving from. The price of land is still cheaper, so they're doing that and then living their the the farm life, as you will, what they envision as being a farm life. And people that are in the industry don't look at it that way, right? 

You know, we don't drive by and say, look at that farm, they got five goats and two horses, but to them they're farming. So so that's what's happening locally for me. And and then and then why it's not coming back is the price of cattle there. It's hard to keep it's hard to keep a heifer 

when you could sell her for twenty five to twenty eight hundred dollars versus you know, keep versus keeping her and turning her into a cow and over the two year cycle because from the time you decide to keep her and breed her, it's a whole nother year before she has a calf, right? Nine months. And then and then it's a whole nother year before she makes you any money. So from the time that calf is born, it's really like, you know, it's a three year deal before she makes you money. So 

So you could get rid of her and make your twenty eight hundred dollars right now and not have to take a chance on A the market dropping the market's dropping or B something happens and she gets sick and dies or gets hurt or anything like that. So right now people are seeing the dollar signs currently and not for the future. 

Mike Donaldson (10:25) 

that makes perfect sense. Do you see any trend to I mean someone's always first to make a change. There was somebody first well, you mentioned beef on dairy. We'll go back to that in a minute. But do you see any cow calf producers who are starting to hang on to more heifers in anticipation of that longer investment paying off as the world needs them? 

Or is the immediate lord just gonna be too strong for quite a while to to have that long range approach? 

Trevor Radcliff (11:02) 

so again, this is kind of my opinion. My opinion is there's some of the bigger guys that are I don't I think you're seeing the sm there's two different ways. I think the first is some of the smaller guys like myself that just have thirty cows. You know, we can keep ten percent. We keep three heifers back. It's probably it's not gonna break us, but you're gonna be able to 

not really grow but maintain your herd size. And then you have some of the guys that are in that eight hundred plus range cows that they're keeping their heifers because they're gonna take the chance on it because they could sell those heifers for twenty five, twenty eight hundred dollars, but instead they're gonna keep they're gonna feed them, they're gonna breed and they're gonna sell them for four to forty five hundred dollars, but they have to sit on And but the 

Mike Donaldson (11:52) 

Mm-hmm. 

Trevor Radcliff (11:53) 

The amount of people that will spend four thousand dollars on a heifer that's you know, you buy her for four grand in November and you sell and she's gonna have a calf on the ground in February or March, that's a lot less risk. You know, if you really think about it, yeah, it's four thousand dollars, but it's a lot less risk than keeping her for twenty eight hundred dollars and something happening along the way. Plus you can buy from you you know, you can buy good reputable cats. 

Cattle from these bigger guys. I mean most of the guys that are selling heifers been doing it for a while and they have good cattle and name matters. so there's that. So so I think it's like the middle guys are buying heifer are buying heifers rate of calves and I feel like some of the smaller guys are just kinda keeping two or ten percent back 

and that and that's just what I see from the people that I talk to. I'm not talking about you know, I don't know what they're doing out in, you know, cow country in Montana and Wyoming and that. I don't know what they're doing out there 'cause I don't get in that area. But that's how I see it around here anyway. 

Mike Donaldson (13:03) 

Well 

we we both mentioned the aspect of beef on dairy and you know, ten, fifteen, however many years ago that was almost unheard of and now it's it's it's the rare farm that doesn't it's it's the rare it's the rare dairy farm that doesn't do some aspect of that. W what's your opinion, you know, the impact on the industry? Are you having to feed those crosses a little differently? 

I mean the size would be right there, what you talked about getting up towards sixteen hundred pounds, but wha what's your take on what got us what's made that so important and what are the some of the things that you do a little differently when you've got a lot full of beef on dairy crosses? 

Trevor Radcliff (13:51) 

despite what people think on the feeding I don't feed I don't feed on my top diet any different than I do anything else. I may I'm gonna start them differently because more than likely they're coming off of a corn pellet deal, so they are used to having more energy and more starch in their rumen versus a normal beef calf or we'll just call a native s native calf, that is coming off grass or 

coming off the cow that's never seen anything but cow and grass. So you have to start them you have to start them differently for sure. But as to end requirements, my energy levels, starch level, protein level, it's all the same. Like I don't feed you know you can have a pen you can have pen four and pen five and they be they can be the crossbreads or they can be natives and put them on the same load and drop the same, you know, drop the same diet to them both. 

They're gonna be fine. That's how I handled that on the big end. as to performance, performance-wise, typically they're gonna be a little bit behind. but a lot of times they're pretty bulletproof. And when I say bulletproof, they're not having any problems. I mean, they come in, they've already the ones that are sick and aren't gonna make it have already not made it there, you if you know what I'm saying. And so they're not there, so you don't have to worry about that. 

The other part of it is they've been on feed, they've been used to coming to the bunk, they've you know, they've been with the same group. there's a whole lot of that stuff. They've probably not been through a sale barn or a couple sale barns. they've been on a good vaccine a good vaccine protocol. They had good colostrum. you know, a lot of these bigger dairies, a lot of these bigger dairies, I mean they've 

Those calves get the same thing all the time. It doesn't matter if they're a steer or a heifer, when they hit the ground, those guys have a protocol and they get it. so their cows, their heifers that are being born on a big dairy, are getting treated the best they can treat right? Those heifers, 'cause they're hoping that they're gonna become in their cow herd, right? In their dairy herd. 

Mike Donaldson (16:08) 

Mm-hmm. 

Trevor Radcliff (16:08) 

Well, 

the steers the steers are getting the same thing. So they're getting treated just as good as anything else. So usually they've got a good source of claustrum, good vaccine program started, and so they just make good cattle. Now there's you can get in, dive into which bulls do better, because there is there is difference in bulls and and we see difference in in producers, like where these cattle come from. I had a guy that did some. 

They just blew absolutely rock and rolled and blew the doors off of it with performance. Not gonna give any numbers because I don't want people to think, well that guy said my day guy did this. So 

Mike Donaldson (16:48) 

Yeah. 

Trevor Radcliff (16:49) 

they just did really well. 

I'll leave it at that. And then I have some that come in same feed, same barn even, and they don't I mean like everything is these saying they came from different spots and they are quite a bit behind on performance. So there's a difference in whether that was a difference in semen or where they got started, or you know, where they came from. That I don't know, but I know there is a difference in them. 

Even though they're as similar to pigs in the beef industry as you can get. I mean, it's most of there's not very many bulls being used and any more. I mean the cows the the cows aren't there's genetic differences, but they're not as genet near as genetically diverse as the beef the beef herd is. I mean, we have how many different breeds, so 

Mike Donaldson (17:42) 

Do do you see any selection taking place of a bull that is primarily going going to be used on native cows compared to a bull who's going to go into a dairy beef on dairy situation? 

Trevor Radcliff (18:02) 

Yeah, those guys have I mean, there's like I said, there's three or four bulls that are good. and it's all genetic thing. I mean, I think, ABS, Selecters and you can get into that. I don't do I'm not much of a genetics guy and names, but I know there's not it's 

It's not like they open up the beef catalog when they're when this dairy is looking. They don't open up the beef catalog and be like, Hmm, I'm gonna l scroll through until I find the one that I visually like the best. No. They've got what are you doing? Okay, you're breeding be you're breeding dairy, we've got these two bulls and this is what they cost. You know, those are those 

Mike Donaldson (18:40) 

Okay. 

Trevor Radcliff (18:41) 

are your options. So it's not it's not like the producer's sitting and then, you know, you have producer A and producer B and they're using one of 'em's using 

one bull and one of 'em's using a different bull that aren't even in the same you know, on the same level, they're probably using the same or there if not there's only two. It's not like they're switching it up much. 

Mike Donaldson (19:06) 

You you work across such a wide area. What are some of the the differences you see between a you know, a Kentucky or a Southeast finishing operation and the ones you work with in Iowa? 

Trevor Radcliff (19:23) 

so there's not a huge amount of finishing operations in Kentucky just because there's a few different things. corn is not number one. I mean we grow decent corn but we don't grow Iowa. 

And then we we don't have any major kill floors that are close, like super close, versus in most of my clients in Iowa, they have probably four different options within nine within ninety miles of their operation, any which direction versus in Kentucky. I think there's one in Missouri and that so that one be depending on where they're at, eight six to eight hours and then the other they 

may go to Pennsylvania which is eight to twelve hours depending on where you're located in the state. So we don't have a huge amount of those and the ones we do are usually they're smaller and they're more of what we would call call calf feds. They're coming off their cows, they're weaning them and they're finishing them and they're buying you know they're buying enough to make a couple loads. You know, they may only have fifty cows so you're gonna keep your heifers you may you so you're gonna have 

Like one and a half loads of fat, so you're gonna buy another half a load. typically is thirty-three to thirty-six head on a semi load. So you might not they might only have forty to sell, so they might buy an extra twenty-five to fit in their group, if that makes sense. Versus out west, and I call it out west, it's kinda probably not really out west, but 

Iowa area. 

Those guys are buying I mean they're buying potloads at a time and I mean some they're shipping cattle, if not weekly, every other week a load or two or a pen is going out. Depends on their barn situation. and so the feeding operation is just they're set up for it. I mean they're bigger operations, they're set up to handle semis, they're they're set up to handle that and and Kentucky 

We don't have a huge amount of that there's a large amount of farms that you can't it's tight to get a semi in, you know, and versus Iowa I think everywhere you can pull a semi in. 

Mike Donaldson (21:48) 

What how does your work I mean, does Michigan just exist as a very slight variation on Iowa 'cause it's sort of the Midwest, or is Michigan a third consideration? 

Trevor Radcliff (22:02) 

I think it's a third consideration for me because I mean I I ninety percent of my business there is Holsteins or beef on dairy cross versus in Iowa I don't have any Holsteins. I have some beef on dairies, but most of are natives or beef on dairies. And then and then in Kentucky I've got some beef on dairies and natives, but I don't have yeah, I don't have any Holsteins right now. 

So it's just it's a different as bad as this may sound Michigan is easy is kind of an easy deal because we're feeding two to three diets and most of the time those cattle there, they almost get to see two birthdays. by 

Mike Donaldson (22:46) 

Yeah. 

Trevor Radcliff (22:46) 

the time they're there, typically we're hoping they're going out by like twenty two months. twenty months they're doing really well from from calf to that, just they grow so much slower and getting as big as we're getting now. 

They typically are just there a long time. So there's not a lot of changes going on. I mean, if I go there, I try to go every four to six weeks to see my gu see my guys there and 

Cattle nothing really changes. Yeah, they're bigger, but they've been on the same diet for how long? I mean, one of my biggest clients, we feed two diets and they come in at four weights, four weight crossbreads or Holsteins, and we feed from four hundred pounds to nine hundred pounds, and then that nine hundred pounds to finish, they go on another diet. And that's just what we do. And it and it works really well for the way they're set up. And but 

Most of them also farm too. That's the other difference that I forgot to mention was Kentucky, a lot of the guys here, they don't farm full time. They have a day job that pays the bills when the beef industry isn't great. And then they've got cattle because they wanted to, they've had the land, and they like a little bit of extra money. Right now it's right now it pays. It doesn't always pay, but right now it's paying pretty well. versus Iowa and Michigan, those guys they got cattle, they f 

farm. I mean majority of them they farm. They have some land and the equipment to do it. They're not just raising cattle. 

Mike Donaldson (24:21) 

What 

I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of nutrition. That's that that's almost too personal to the farm. You said that your your finish ration, your top end ration stays pretty consistent and that right now relatively low feed prices compared to the price of finished cattle is advantageous for a beef producer. What are some of the things that you 

~ do you see much variation at all? You said they're very similar, but how are people feeding any differently with these really high prices for finished animals? And the quality you spoke to? 

Trevor Radcliff (25:03) 

Yeah, I think the biggest difference is we're just trying to get intakes. I mean you gotta get cattle to eat big early on, otherwise they will not be able to perform those numbers and hold those numbers because the bigger the cattle get, the more feed they need, more maintenance requirements they have. Okay. So 

Therefore the bigger they get, the lower performance gets because their body they're eating they're eating twenty five pounds on a dry matter, so they're eating twenty five pounds on dry matter. Well, a percentage of that goes to maintain their body weight. And then the rest, whatever isn't used for maintenance, goes into performance. Well, they can only eat so much, so as they get bigger so as they get bigger, their intake still stays the same, so therefore performance performance starts to come down. 

So we have to get those numbers as big as we can and how are we doing that? better quality cattle definitely cattle quality definitely makes the difference, but it I think it's some of how we start how I start trying to get them to eat big early before you get them on a big before you get them on that top diet, trying to get those intakes up there. So 

And then hope hoping that you've have everything balanced right, that when they switch their intakes don't drop. Because they're gonna eat to a they're gonna eat to a energy level. So you have to try to you know, if you have on a say a grower diet, and let's say it's just a fifty-five energy NEG 

You have on a fifty-five, well they may eat thirty-six pounds of dry matter. And then you when you switch them to your finisher, say that's a let's say that's a sixty-four NEG. When you switch to that 

They're probably not gonna eat they're not gonna eat the same thirty four pounds of dry matter because they don't have to eat as many pounds to get the same amount of energy, right? So if you can you're gonna always you're almost always gonna get a intake decrease when you go up to a higher level. That is the key to how well are your cattle gonna perform, if you can keep 

those intakes higher and all that's about timing. and and my timing I can always make recommendations to people, but it takes really good bunk readers 

to make the difference and the and you can see that the guys that are doing the best on farm like reading the bunks, reading the cattle, their intakes are always better. They they are. And they always have less of a fall when they hit that top diet. And and then the other thing is as when the biggest problem that we're having now is when cattle are done, they'll tell you they're done just by intakes. Their intakes really like we have a I have a group right now, they've been hammering at twenty eight to twenty nine pounds of dry matter. They needed to get 

Sold 

four weeks ago and he's just waiting on a pri waiting on price, waiting on a price, pounds pay, pounds pay is what he keeps saying. Well their intakes were at twenty eight pounds and for the last four weeks they keep going down. Now they're down to like twenty three, twenty four pounds. They're done. They're not growing any because it's taken a most of that to just keep the maintenance level of that animal. And then now you're starting to get into heat and this and that. So I keep pushing them to get those gone. That's just one story. 

Mike Donaldson (28:35) 

So we're halfway through twenty twenty-six. What are three things, if you were to sit down with a bunch of producers, what are three things or whatever your list wants to be, but at least three things that you feel right now are absolutely vital to being profitable in the beef business? 

Trevor Radcliff (28:54) 

I think making sure your all your I's are dotted and T's are crossed. So just it's the simple things. making sure your feed quality is good. Feed you know, we're coming into not much longer feet and some feed is already being harvested, some s halage and small grains and that kind of stuff, but doing your best to make sure your feed quality is good because that 

goes into I mean, you're gonna feed that for the next year, right? So, whether that's and I'm not saying we have to treat it all. Yes, we wanna treat it all with with Silo King of course, but I'm not saying you have to treat it all. I'm just saying pack it good and cover it. Get it in the bunk and that's a start. You know, there's a lot of people that don't even do that. They just kinda half ass pack it and 

And then if they cover it and when they get to it, mm, okay. that that's one of the easiest things. You're already putting feet in the bunk. If you're putting feet in the bunk, just do a better job at it. It doesn't cost you much any more to do a better job. And so let's do that. That's I think probably one of the biggest things that you can do. 

I think quality of cattle, I mean, and and that's gonna be tough. There's gonna be a lot of poor quality f cattle fed on a lot of these farms just because of the cost of some of these higher quality cattle, yeah, they're gonna perform better, but are they gonna perform good enough to make up for what they cost? I don't know, probably not. So I think there's gonna be a lot more mediocre cattle being fed just because 

you they wanna keep their pins full and instead of cattle getting a f three five or three eight average daily gain, we're gonna have cattle that are doing a three three to three five average daily gain. But if they make more money, who cares? but 

for me and now I'm getting a little selfish here, for me those suck because it doesn't it looks back on man, these 

Mike Donaldson (30:57) 

Yeah. 

Trevor Radcliff (30:57) 

cattle didn't perform as well. So we're always trying to reel these guys back in. Yeah, they didn't perform as well, but they're not the quality cattle we were feeding a year ago because those quality cattle you were in the red and these quality cattle you barely made it in the green with the price now. So so I think that's something that you're gonna see and then 

A third thing I don't know. I I think there's just it's hard to narrow down what a third thing that we're gonna see and what we can do. I think every operation is different and what I pride myself is going there and trying to find what can we do that doesn't cost us any money, but it's gonna make us money and there's always stuff you can find to do that's cheap but pays big. 

Mike Donaldson (31:45) 

I think it's one of the things that's i it's both it's both a good thing and a challenging thing. farmers can be so competitive. whose corn is tallest, who's who's got things off early, who planted first, and sometimes trying to drive home that point that you know it's more important to be profitable than have the absolute 

Trevor Radcliff (32:11) 

Yeah. 

Mike Donaldson (32:12) 

best animals or best results. 

Is ~ that can be kinda hard to get people to swallow their pride on that okay th we're we're in this to make money, not just make beef. 

Trevor Radcliff (32:24) 

Yeah, I mean and there's a lot of that too. I think you're seeing you're gonna see a lot of heifers on feed two. And that's something that gotta try to tell these guys. Well, so and so down the road is getting you know, his he just sold a load that did whatever performance. It did a three seven. Yeah, they're f he's feeding good quality steers. He's not feeding these heifers. 

that you're trying to overfeed because they're trying to overfeed and heifers are worse about overfeeding than steers. Heifers will just flat stop stop performing. I mean, they'll just plateau. And 

You know, so there there's a lot of that that comes into when when I hear people and I'm just not gonna say within Agri-King, but other people talk about how they're struggling, like, so and so is not happy with the cattle performance. Okay, so most of the time it's not the diet that's in front of 'cause we've done our job and got that diet in front of 

On paper anyway. So are they mixing it right? Probably doing a pretty good job. There's so many different feeding tra feeding softwares that make it where th most guys do a pretty good job getting the right ration in front of them. So then you gotta dig into a little bit more. What kind of cattle are they feeding? What's their bunk management like? What's their pen management like? You know, there's all this other kind of stuff and if you can't if you have zero control, you have zero control over that. 

So all you can do is tell these guys, hey 

These cattle aren't performing because they're walking through, you know, three foot of sludge in the in their pen. That's gonna eat a quarter pound a day right there. And and then when they're doing that, they're probably gonna eat less pounds of feed. So now you've got a double whammy. They're burning more energy just to s just to stay alive. And then they're not gonna eat as much because they don't want to fight walking through that. So damn, there's two right there that you've lost a half you've half a pound a day. Well, your other 

guy you go look at him, his pins are nice and his intakes are big. That's why, you know, there's always there's almost always a reason. And there's sometimes where you just 

didn't hit a home run. I mean, you just you struck out and it is whether it was a bought bad load of cattle, the weather killed you on starting those cattle, whatever that may be, you can't win every single time. So in the beef in the beef industry, it's an average. You're gonna win your and you hope your average is always better than your loss, right? I mean, you gotta keep your win column high and you're gonna have some losses, but i if you think you're not having any losses or you haven't had any loss losses and you're watching 

This hold on because you're about to have one. That's just the nature of the beast. It's the way it is. You can't help it. So 

Mike Donaldson (35:12) 

Grab 

grab your crystal ball from it before I let you go. What are what is something that you're paying attention to maybe in the next five years? What's a what's a trend you see developing? What's a practice you think's gonna become more common? Maybe it's something you think will become less common, but just nobody's ever gonna go back and hold your feet to the fire on this, but as we sit here today, what are your thoughts over the coming years? 

Trevor Radcliff (35:42) 

I think 

I think using other products like Experior is one by Alanco that is just taking the markets by wildfire and it's helping with yields and this and they came out with it to help with emissions and then they I don't to be honest, I don't know if they thought they would have the results that they're having, but you know, I think there's a gonna be a lot of stuff like that and figuring out what is 

you know, what's just foo foo dust and what actually works is gonna be it it's gonna be a big thing and that's gonna take these guys to the next level. a and then I don't I don't really know. I mean you wanna say y'all everybody always wants to talk about the markets, but I think right now we're kind of in 

interesting spot on the cattle markets on where we're gonna go because cattle numbers aren't there. Cattle numbers aren't not gonna be there ex n at least in the foreseeable future. but at what point is the price gonna come down just because the price of pound of ground beef in the grocery store. you know 

So so I don't know that there's any thing I don't I don't know that I can say, yeah, this is what's gonna happen because I don't really even know know what's gonna happen. I think cattle mar cattle numbers are gonna probably kinda maintain there and I think pri cattle prices are gonna come down. that's w what I do think. I think the price of cattle will come down just because 

I mean we're gonna get more exports or imports and we're gonna we're not exporting as much and there's just that part of politics that is a big question mark as well. no matter what side of the fence you're on, you're not gonna be happy one way or the other and we're just kinda got we 

Mike Donaldson (37:41) 

Okay. 

Trevor Radcliff (37:42) 

kinda gotta ride the we gotta gotta ride this wave and see what and and see what happens because whatever gets done now is gonna get changed in the next couple of years just the 

Because it's how it is. So so I think my biggest thing to people is I would say don't don't base your operation on 

eight weights be bringing three f three fifty plus. I I like I I wouldn't base my operation on a calf bringing twenty eight to thirty two hundred dollars because that's how you can go broke. it's just not gonna happen because I don't think we'll be there forever. I could be totally wrong and in three years we look back and be like, look, we're still selling in five years, look, we're still selling three thousand plus eight weight steers. I don't think we will be. Mm I just don't think the 

I just don't think the grocery store the consumers can handle that forever. so I I I think you're gonna have some of that. You're gonna have a lot of people that do get over leveraged because they've been making this much money and they're buying new equipment. Trust me, I'd love to have new equipment too, but I don't think it makes you know, long term I don't think that's where you should go. I think you need to put your money in something that's gonna make you more money, such as b you know, buying better quality cattle. 

and not just buying any piece of junk cow that comes through the sale ring. so I don't know if that kinda answered your question or kinda maybe rolled it around a little bit. 

Mike Donaldson (39:14) 

No, that was that was exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Now we're gonna finish with the big question of the day. And you put your thinking cap on for this one. So I'm coming over to the house of Radcliff tonight for dinner, telling me what cut of beef you're gonna serve to me and how you're gonna prepare it. 

Trevor Radcliff (39:37) 

well you're if you come over here, you're gonna get a ribeye, you're gonna get a medium rare, and you're gonna get a done on the smoker with a hot sear at the end. So that's what you're gonna get if you're getting beef. I don't think I think there's a lot of beef. Actually, if we're talking that, one of my favorite cuts is I love a flank steak. And and then I like 

And then if you get like beef ribs, you get what they call flunkin' style, or you have the three little riblets. They cut you know, your bones run this way and they cut this way. I think those are as flavorful as any cut on the cow. But 

nobody knows how to cook or knows that's that's it really an even o even an option. So ribeye is always the number one. And people that like filet it's just 'cause they haven't had a good ribeye. Filet doesn't have much flavor, it's 

Mike Donaldson (40:26) 

Yeah. 

Trevor Radcliff (40:27) 

just tender, okay? 

Mike Donaldson (40:30) 

Well, it it sounds like maybe Chris, maybe we maybe we've really fanned on this whole podcast. Maybe part two needs to be cooking with Trevor. And and that that 

Trevor Radcliff (40:39) 

Hey, there we go. 

Mike Donaldson (40:45) 

Well Tre 

Chris Radke (40:40) 

Ooh, I love that idea. I could be done with that. 

Trevor Radcliff (40:45) 

That's fine. I 

mean we cook we cook a lot of beef, we cook a lot of pork, you know, we I like to eat and then everybody knows that I'm a halfway decent cook, so actually sa Saturday I have to I don't have to. I'm doing smoking some pork, make pulled pork for my nephew's birthday. So we're always throwing something on the grill. 

Mike Donaldson (41:05) 

Well perfect. Well Trevor, thank you so much for taking time to be with us today. I appreciate it very, very much. Besides the menu suggestions, Chris, what did you learn today? 

Chris Radke (41:18) 

my big takeaway is Trevor believes that high prices are attributed to low inventory, better quality, and Trevor believes that COVID was a blessing to him, which I I love it. Just looking at things differently. thank you so much if you're listening to us. Whatever you're listening on, please leave us a review. and you can find us on just about any socials or any of the listening apps. you can also email us at podcast @agriking.com if you'd like to listen, hear us talk about something else. 

And Mike and Trevor, thank you very much. Have a great day. 

Trevor Radcliff (41:53) 

Thank you. 

Mike Donaldson (41:53) 

Thank you 

guys.