By Taylor Ohlde, RAAA commercial marketing specialist

As the marketing team and other staff travel to bull sales, we see some of the best Red Angus bulls in the country. The genetic progress, the versatility and the usefulness of those great herd sire prospects is not unnoticed. Through the hard work that seedstock producers have put in to create a product that commercial cattlemen can trust to produce the next generation calf crop on their own ranch, a lot of high-quality females are made in the process. These are sometimes marketed alongside the bulls at sale time, and they have been well received this season.

Purebred and commercial females alike, cattlemen know they can trust their ability to not only survive in their ranch setting but thrive while doing the task they set out to do. In the fall we tend to see more bred females being offered compared to spring, as producers calve those out and get them in the program earlier. We saw commercial bred cows average $2,439 and bred heifers coming in at $2,539. Open heifers garnished an average of $1,633 in the fall, and in the spring that number increased to $2,158. Continuing into the spring season, we see more pairs and later calving or fall-bred females. Bred cows averaged $2,742 while heifers settled in at $2,969 with those cow-calf pairs being very appetizing at $3,835. Live calves hold extra value now with the cattle cycle the way it is, and which was evident this spring.

As far as registered females go, we saw a similar trend in how the number fluctuated depending on if the cattle were open or bred as well as the age of the female. The one thing that differed most was the price of open registered females from fall to spring. In the fall, open heifers averaged $6,165 while in the spring, even with a substantially greater number of them offered, they averaged $3,610. Particular sales can be a major influence in these numbers, which must be kept in consideration. There was more excitement for registered open heifers in the fall due to it being the first offering. Breeders are wanting to ensure they can secure those genetics in their herd. The bred heifers came in solid as they averaged $4,490 in the fall and $4,168 in the spring. Bred cows in the fall garnished $4,393 and the next spring were $3,507 on roughly the same number. Regionally is where some of the main differences come into play. Like before, registered pairs remained hot this spring as they averaged $4,669.

I look forward to seeing how this fall sale season follows up as I feel there is still rebuilding to be done, as long as those parts of the country are ready for it. And the Red Angus female will remain as valuable as ever.