09/04/2026
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Or use Limousin and get rid of virtually all 4's & 5's, grow them bigger efficiently, and keep the quality grade
Texas Tech meat scientist Dale Woerner says extra days on feed put 30 to 40 pounds on a carcass, and over half of that gain is fat rather than lean, which is why your ribeye keeps getting wider and the trim bin keeps getting fuller.
External fat thickness on fed steers and heifers sat near 1.2 or 1.3 centimeters from 1995 through 2011, and by 2022 the average had climbed to 1.49.
Yield Grade 4 and 5 carcasses, the two fattest scores on USDA's five point scale, made up about a quarter of animals heading into 2025. Woerner puts it well over 30 percent now.
Cattle marketing firm U.S. Premium Beef told the SEC it saw record high Yield Grade 4 and 5 rates on its Kansas and Iowa grids in the first quarter of this year, along with its largest yield grade discount ever in Kansas, averaging $11.70 per head.
For the week of August 31, packers averaged a $1.07 per hundredweight discount on carcasses from 900 to 1,000 pounds, $4.29 from 1,000 to 1,050 pounds, and $15.45 on anything above 1,050, according to USDA market data.
Fat is not all waste. Rendered tallow now feeds renewable diesel, and Terrain economist Dave Weaber says the swing in tallow value alone has added about $40 a head to carcass value.
The lean has to come from somewhere else. America imported 562,000 metric tons of beef and beef products in the first quarter of 2026, up 18 percent from last year and 122 percent from five years ago, much of it lean trimmings blended into ground beef because corn-fed domestic cattle no longer supply enough of it.
That is the knot. Fatter cattle pay the feeder, feed the fuel tank, and pull in the imports a lot of ranchers do not want. Which side would you take at the plant: heavier animals with a $15.45 discount waiting, or lighter animals and a lighter check? Pick one and say what it costs the other guy.
Sources: Agri-Pulse, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, National Beef Quality Audit, American Farm Bureau Federation, Texas Tech University
