Deiter Brothers Dispersing- cattle.com

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this is from Jeff at www.cattle.com

Deiter Brothers Dispersing
If you get their newsletter, this isn't news by any means.  However, Deiter Brothers, one of the ten largest seedstock producers in the nation, has decided to "exit the cow business".

After a quick read of the newsletter, I'll use my lack of information to ignorantly blame it on high crop prices just like everything else impacting livestock today.  It sounds as if they plan to go full bore on the farming side of the business and they claim they are getting out of livestock "lock, stock and barrel; no if, ands or buts". 

According to their newsletter, they'll offer a total bred female liquidation in their December sale, have their regular 09 Spring bull sale, and decide at a later date what to do with the open 08 model heifers.

There just aren't too many names out there bigger than Deiter and Camp Cooley and both have announced dispersals in the past month.  Unlike Camp Cooley though, the letter from Deiter doesn't leave nearly as much ambiguity that would lead a person to believe they'll pop up in the cattle business again in just a few years.

 

[garybob]

Like I said before, when baby Holsteins bottom-out, everything else follows. Get ready for a rough ride, Cowboys ( and Cowgirls).

GB

 

[chambero]

I get so tired of these "dispersals".  There are so many factors usually involved yet they use short-term market conditions as an excuse that cause everyone else to worry.  Several cases as example:

Camp Cooley alludes to a tough three week period and the fact that their herd was quarantined due to contact with wildebeests.  Good grief!  Talk about knee-jerking.  Besides, if these idiots (not referring specifically to Camp Cooley - but there are plenty of others to pick from) down here would do away with their high fenced canned hunts for genetically manipulated whitetails and exotics, they wouldn't have those problems.  Crap like that happens with elk (chronic wasting disease - a close relative to BSE) and other "caged" animals.  Using current market conditions is a bunch of crap.   They most likely have decided they can make more money by maximizing hunting - or their investors have lost too much money on something else.

I don't know much about Dieter Bros, but I'm guessing they've decided they can make more money doing something else also. 

The very old ranch we've bought cattle from forever "dispersed" their Angus cattle a couple of years ago.  They were done, not going to have any more, period.  Some money person from the southeast came and bought them out.  However, the ranch we've always dealt with never skipped a sale.  They didn't disperse everything apparently.

So many things come into play - bickering siblings over inheritances, lost money in some other venture that requires them to come up with cash (cow sales are a good source), and on and on and on.  We see this bull with lots of big Angus ranches down here.  Another example - a big one down here run by a homebuilder "dispersed" last year.  Lost too much money building houses, can't get people to work for them in our area, etc.  Well they have somehow leased their land to a really, really big Angus ranch headquartered in the southeast (bet you can guess) and they brought a bunch of cows up here a month or two ago to put embryos in.  I guess they are going to base one of their recip herds up here.  Anyhow, they are somehow having a little trouble with one another.  Apparently chicken*** landowner in our area hasn't gotten paid his lease money by chicken**** cow owner.   It's kind of humorous to watch these guys do it to one another.  About as much relevance to the rest of us as married movie stars to your average husband and wife.

Current economic conditions aren't good - primarily for the guys with cattle in the feedlots from what I can tell.  Market prices are still fine for us selling weaned calves this summer.  Something is gonna change - feedlots can't keep losing $200 a head.  I imagine prices in the grocery store will jump up a bunch. 

But a "real" cattle rancher will fall over dead (literally in many cases) before they'd "disperse" their cows.

As part of my business, I was at a large conference last week where one of the main topics was energy issues (i.e. sources, green buildings, etc) and their impacts on the military.  There were several very good speakers on the subject.  Not that this is a surprise, but food prices are going up worldwide just like oil prices.  Why - largely because the rest of the world is starting to live and eat just like us.  The basic gist of one of the best speakers (head of the Rocky Mountain Institute who is a pretty smart dude) was a warning that in the next ten years public opinion will likely be as harsh toward agriculture as it is the oil industry right now because of the change in market prices - largely because of increases in world demand and preferences.  People are tired of living off of gruel.  We could very easily return to wars over food (and water) sources just like we have over oil now.  And these talks weren't to an ag audience or "tree huggers".

 

[SWMO]

You would think that those guys that are trying to run exotic animals with their livestock (cattle in the case of Camp Cooley) would realize that eventually they would have a problem with disease.  They  are saying that a small number of their cattle came in contact with wildebeast.  Last time I knew wildebeast weren't native to North America.  Look at the trouble we have with native deer, elk and bison transmitting disease. 

And if one Elk can bring Camp Cooley $10,000 plus the related fees why are they bothering to run cattle?