JR Blackwelder Farms

08/18/2026

Can you really call yourself a redneck if you never mow and bale your yard for hay every once in a while???

08/17/2026

From our first crop of embryo calves out of M6 New Germaine 5150 P ET comes this homozygous polled daughter of the maternal specialist LT Blue Value 7903 ET

08/17/2026

Heavy crop but curing fast in this heat ☀️

08/13/2026

When the ferilizer and rain hits just right!

08/12/2026

Tedding some really good coastal bermuda hay to bale tomorrow that I was sure was going to get soaked last night. Hay making in the south during summertime is such a gamble!

08/08/2026

08/03/2026

Beautifully packaged and homozygous polled M6 Slam Dunk 3115 P ET daughter who’s also a member of the Nancy cow family. Several of her daughters have been retained in the herd.

07/31/2026

Thankful for the recent rain and moving out of D3 drought status for the first time in weeks. It’s actually fun checking pastures and cows again! Hopefully we will continue to see improvement.

07/12/2026

Weaned heifer calves in the shade trying to beat the heat

07/07/2026

Yes, a single calf really can sell for more than $2,500 right now. And that number is exactly why so many American ranchers are nervous instead of celebrating.

Start with the price. On Monday, July 6, feeder cattle futures traded around $360 per hundred pounds, according to market reporting from Barchart. The CME Feeder Cattle Index hit $372.63 just days earlier. At those levels, a 700 pound calf pencils out to more than $2,500. Numbers like that were unthinkable not long ago. Back in 2024, Farm Bureau economists noted calf prices were already running 67% above the five year average. They have kept climbing since.

So where is all that money coming from? Scarcity. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the U.S. cattle inventory recently fell to its smallest level in 73 years. The USDA Economic Research Service counted 86.7 million cattle at the start of 2025, down 8% from the 2019 peak. Three years of drought starting in 2020 forced ranchers to sell cows they could not feed. Fewer cows means fewer calves. Fewer calves means higher prices. Simple.

Here is where the story turns. Record prices should mean the best years ranchers have ever had. They don't, at least not automatically. The Farm Bureau reports that even with record high cattle prices, margins for many producers remain razor thin. Total U.S. agricultural production expenses were forecast to reach a record $455 billion in 2024, the sixth straight year of increases. Feed. Fuel. Interest. Equipment. The check for the calf got bigger, but so did every bill it took to raise that calf.

And there is a harder problem underneath, one most shoppers never see. According to USDA census data, the typical American beef operation runs about 47 cows. Not 4,700. Forty seven. Meanwhile, the 10.5% of operations with 100 or more cattle control 60.5% of the nation's beef cows. For a small operation, one dry summer or one interest rate spike can wipe out the gains from record prices entirely.

Which brings us to the choice every small rancher is facing right now. To rebuild the herd, a rancher has to hold back heifer calves instead of selling them. Every heifer kept is $2,500 not collected this year, gambled on a market that might look completely different in two years when she finally raises a calf of her own. The industry is in year seven of herd contraction partly because so many ranchers cannot afford to make that bet.

Record prices on the board. Record costs on the ground. And a $2,500 decision standing out in the pasture.

So here is the question we keep coming back to. If you were running those 47 cows, would you sell that heifer today and take the money, or hold her back and gamble on tomorrow? Tell us what you would do in the comments. The answers from people who actually live this might surprise you.