90+% of cattle ranches run on a maximum $$$ per acre basis. Mutt cattle. No fault with this.
We had a ranch in OK when I was growing up that went the other direction. Prime beef, registered Black Angus exclusively. Well, almost exclusively. Once, one of the mature heifers died leaving a few months old calf. Bought an old milk cow and she adopted the orphan calf and supplied milk to a number of other calves to boot. Damn but there were fat calves for several years. Lol…
Our family went the other direction with the Angus. Model was prime beef. Much lower cattle per acre. Better supplemental feed in the winter. Much greater $$$ per lb at auction time for steers. Heifers sold for bigger $$$ for breeding stock instead of heading to the feedlots. The local high school 4H kids really liked our calves for livestock shows. Higher end restaurants and meat markets liked our steers for that best you ever had big $$$ steak.
Going with this high end model generally doesn't get the greatest $$$ per acre. However…. It especially doesn't have the extremes of low $$$ per acre when economics are stressed. Also, the land is protected and doesn't look like a plague of locusts ate it bare.
I’m 60 years old. My family has raised beef since forever. We generally ran Shorthorn bulls on whatever mutt cows came through the sale barn when we needed to increase the herd, but we never ran so many that they could eat the place to the ground in a month. I can recall a few drought years where we really had to hustle to get the herd through the summer. 1980 or ‘81 it was so bad that we were hand-chopping shattercane out of our field corn and hauling it halfway across the county to feed our cattle.
We finally got out when the city limits surrounded the old home farm on all four sides. With the scumbag trespassers constantly cutting fences it got to the point that Pops and I had to run the line fences every weekend and sometimes once or twice during the week to keep them up. We finally had enough of that crap so we sold the herd and the property that had been in the family since 1840.
That said, here’s what I’ve spent on beef over the past few years...
2019: $659.05 half beef ~$2/lb plus processing $159.50
2020: $672.00 half beef ~$2/lb plus processing $184.00
2021: paid cash no record
2022: $1670.00 whole beef ~$2.60/lb plus processing $504.20
2023: $1977.80 whole beef ~$3.09/lb plus processing $558.50
2024 projection: $2560.00 whole beef ~4/lb plus processing $600.00
So CaptPhilFan, for next spring I’m looking at ~$5/lb. for farmer-raised, grain-finished, clean beef into the freezer. I bought another freezer this spring, and I will likely buy another one next spring.
You can poo-poo the OP’s source all you want, but you can’t change the fact that beef prices have been climbing over the past few years, and this year will see a huge jump due to cost of inputs, semi-low supply, and overall increasing demand.