How Significant are Discounts on Lighter Muscled Calves?

Over the last year, we have discussed price differentials between bulls and steers, and for weaned calves versus those straight off the cow. In both cases, there are management implications for cow-calf producers. Most of the time, there is a price advantage when steers and for selling preconditioned calves. The producer must decide if that price benefit is sufficient to justify implementing the management practice. In this article, I want to discuss the impact that feeder cattle muscling has on market value. While this is…