I'm here for this Dale....the small cow/calf ranchers have been fighting an uphill battle against the contract sales that the feedlots have been orchestrating with the big 4 packers that control it all. Retaining heifers and pairs seems to be at an all time low and I blame the packers for most, if not all, of this. We need to bring competition back to meat packing and processing. Right now Tyson, Cargil, JBS control 85% of that process and have eroded the historical chain of command; Cow/pairs, background ranchers, feedlots, then packing. The first two steps on the ladder are under serious threat when the packers just simply contract with the feedlots for inferior products. My goal once the FDA get's throttled and Anti trust laws strip the 4 big players of their monopoly we need to bring local/regional packing to the local ranchers. Money and a vision is all that will be required. Let's MAKE BEEF GREAT AGAIN!!!

Erin Galloway sells beef straight off her Wyoming ranch, no packer and no auction barn in the chain. Five of her steers came home this week as a stack of boxes and a bill. Five head, 1,100 to 1,200 pounds live weight, grain finished but not heavy. Having them processed ran $5,800. That is $1,160 a head, due before the first pound hits the farm store freezer. The plant was Western Heritage Meat Company in Sheridan, Wyoming, a federally inspected facility. FSIS lists it as establishment M47420, inspection granted December 15, 2021, in the smallest size tier the agency tracks. The $5,800 buys slaughter, cutting and wrapping. The animal, the feed, the hay, the water, the equipment and the infrastructure were all paid months earlier. Cutting out the packer does not cut out the kill floor. "I have to pay $5,800 to have these five steers processed before I can sell any of it," Galloway said. Her deposits are non-refundable because a customer once backed out after the beef was already cut to order, leaving her to sell cuts sized for somebody else's kitchen. That bill lands in October. The beef sells through the winter. The rancher carries the gap.

For too long, American ranchers have watched wolves kill their livestock, threaten their livelihoods, and devastate family operations built over generations. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Under @POTUS, we are putting RANCHERS FIRST. 🇺🇸 We are working directly with states to strengthen wolf management, expand protections for livestock, and ensure ranchers have the tools they need to defend their herds — including lethal removal when authorized by law. Our ranchers deserve the right to defend their herds and the livelihoods they have worked generations to build. We will ALWAYS stand with the American rancher. ⬇️ usda.gov/about-usda/news/pre…

My Sunday has been packed full of happy, sad, busy, at-peace, devastated and heaven on earth. How is your Sunday?

A second chance to stay wild. 🐴 More than 100 wild horses returned to the Bighorn Basin after a roundup of nearly 350 in Wyoming. Back on the range, where they belong. 🤎 Support the Conservation: americanwildhorse.org/donate… Repost @abc4utah | Video: Jacqueline Alderman

this one steer loves to do the exact opposite of whatever you need him to do. Every little thing is a fight... Counting down to his butcher date tbh.

DEMAND USA BEEF!!!

The FDA pulled over-the-counter antibiotics off the shelf in 2023 and made ranchers get a vet's permission to treat their own animals. LA 200, the broad-spectrum oxytetracycline that sat at every feed store for decades, now requires a prescription. A rancher with 300 sheep waited three months for a vet to fill the order. Got 50 milliliters. That treats one cow. Pinkeye in cattle. Foot rot in sheep. Copperhead bites. Conditions that need fast treatment. Every day you wait on a prescription, the animal suffers. USDA designates hundreds of veterinary shortage areas across the country. The nearest large-animal vet might be two hours away. The FDA's answer is to call one and wait. That breakdown from Rational Ranchers lays it out. The people feeding this country can't get basic medicine without jumping through hoops that don't exist where they live. That's exactly why I manage my herd health proactively and sell direct. Cut out every middleman that stands between my cattle and your freezer. Your rancher, Jason Hanley | 208-714-0478

58% of America’s cattle inventory sits in drought. 57% of the hay is dry right along with them. This isn’t a price problem. It’s a grass problem. The herd was rebuilding, then flash drought tore through cattle country. When grass dies, ranchers sell cows. That’s the squeeze.

WHERE DID YOUR BEEF COME FROM? When you buy beef at the grocery store, do you actually know what country it came from? Fifth generation Texas cattle rancher Shad Sullivan joins Lara Logan to explain Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL) and why he believes American consumers should know whether the beef they are buying came from the United States or was imported from countries such as Mexico, Brazil or Argentina. Shad explains how imported beef enters the United States with documentation identifying its country of origin, but changes made in 2015 ended federal mandatory country-of-origin labeling requirements for beef and pork at retail. In Episode 97 of Going Rogue with Lara Logan, Lara and Shad examine foreign beef imports, country-of-origin labeling, the concentration of the beef-processing industry, the decline of the American cattle herd, threats to private property rights and what the loss of independent ranchers could mean for America’s food security and sovereignty. @yearlins | @GoingRoguewLara Watch Episode 97: bit.ly/goingrogue_ep97 Support Going Rogue and Lara Logan: laralogan.com/support #LaraLogan #AmericanRanchers #CattleRanchers #MCOOL #AmericanBeef

Under President Trump, the weaponization of government against producers is ending. 🇺🇸 Farmers and ranchers are being defended — not targeted. Property, production, and freedom are being restored.

.@POTUS signs an Executive Order to support farmers' ability to butcher, process, package, and sell their meat across state lines: "We're going to give farmers and ranchers the right to process their own food... so they don't have to go through the Big Four processors."

FRIDAY: THE WAR ON BEEF The state of America’s beef industry is exploding across social media, and the next episode of Going Rogue with Lara Logan takes on the fight behind the headlines. From mandatory country of origin labeling and foreign beef imports to soaring prices, rancher outrage and the monopoly power of major meat processors, Lara examines the forces threatening America’s cattle producers and food supply. Her guest is Shad Sullivan, a lifelong rancher who has spent 52 years in the cattle industry and is deeply involved in the fight to protect ranchers’ property rights. Together, they expose how net zero policies, attacks on private land ownership and consolidation within the beef industry all come together in what Shad calls the war on beef. @yearlins | @GoingRoguewLara Episode 97 premieres Friday at 12 p.m. CST on all platforms. #LaraLogan #CattleRanchers #AmericanRanchers #BeefIndustry #PropertyRights

A Big Four packer told a Kansas City chain to drop Hertzog Meats or lose their whole order. That is how they play ball on the meat side. Jim Hertzog dry-aged beef was flying off the shelf. One of the Big Four noticed and cut the chain off. @corbittwall @nbwfeederflash

A processor doing 5,000 head a year operates under the exact same federal regulatory architecture as a plant doing 5,000 head a day. The compliance cost for a giant packer works out to about 7 cents per animal. The same requirement on a small processor adds $5 per head before the first steak gets cut. At a rural slaughterhouse, the guy the USDA comes in to do paperwork with is the same guy fixing the refrigeration unit that afternoon. Regulation stops regulating the marketplace. It starts determining who can afford to participate in it. The federal government knows this. USDA launched SPUR, over $500 million to prop up independent processors. Taxpayers are paying hundreds of millions to keep regional plants alive without asking whether federal regulation is making them unnecessarily expensive to operate. Maybe we shouldn't subsidize our way around the problem. Maybe we should fix the problem. That breakdown from Yanasa TV is exactly why I sell beef direct from my own ranch. Skip the cartel entirely. Your rancher, Jason Hanley | 208-714-0478