Cow Drop Values Bringing More Than Steer Values

AMES, IA – For the first time since 2014, drop values for cattle exceeded $14 per hundredweight with steers leading the increase at $14.61, a 72 percent year-over-year increase.

The “drop” represents the wholesale value that packers receive from the animal’s by-products that “drop” off the carcass when an animal is harvested for beef, and includes hides, edible offal, inedible offal, and variety meats which are a subcategory of edible offal.

According to Lee Schulz, an Iowa State economist, the value for cows at $14,46 per hundredweught is not only a 46 percent increase over the same time period in 2020, but also is actually worth more on a dressed weight basis than the value for steers. While this has occured in the past, Schulz remarks that it has not been “this prolonged and to this degree”. It does not, he explains, mean that steer by-products are worth less, rather the cow by-products are simply worth more.
(SOURCE: All Ag News)