Understanding which developments represent actual supply changes and which are simply price movements will be essential.

The cash cattle market entered the weekend with Southern packer bids reported at two twenty-eight and feedlot asking prices around two thirty.

The Ag Center reported renewed Saturday bids after limited Friday sales.

Northern live cattle traded mainly around two twenty-six to two twenty-seven, with dress transactions reported at three fifty to three fifty-five.

Meanwhile, USDA's October sixteenth afternoon report placed choice boxed beef at three seventy-two, down one sixty-seven on the day.

Select gained forty-three cents to three fifty-three, leaving the choice select spread at nineteen cents.

That divergence matters for packer economics.

They do not establish a change in the reopening schedule.

From the Sparks Group.

USDA says we're going to have more corn.

That's good news.

Now somebody needs to get it out of the field.

Iowa has harvested just fourteen percent of its corn crop against a five-year average of thirty-four percent.

Diesel futures just jumped more than twenty-one cents a gallon.

Anybody celebrating cheaper feed without checking basis and freight is only doing half the math.

Chicken is generally steady, with year-to-date slaughter up one-point-three percent.

Protein Pulse Drive Time, a WASDE special for October 9th from the Sparks Group.

USDA just added two hundred eighty-two million bushels to projected corn ending stocks while cutting beef and pork production forecasts for both 2026 and 2027.

That's the disconnect.

[sighs] Corn yield jumped to one hundred eighty-one point two bushels an acre, surprising the trade.

Meal stays at three hundred forty dollars a ton.

Cattle supplies remain constrained.

Pork expectations are slipping, and chicken continues adding pounds.

The wholesale broiler forecast slipped a penny to one hundred twenty-one cents.

From The Sparks Group.

I think most of us know somebody dealing with alpha-gal syndrome.

One tick bite and suddenly they can't enjoy a steak, hamburger, or bacon.

So when I read about people receiving acupuncture treatments in their ears and reportedly eating red meat again, it caught my attention.

Am I skeptical? Absolutely.

I'm not convinced acupuncture is a cure, but I sure hope there's something to it.

The science still has a lot to prove, but if there's a chance to put steak back on somebody's plate, I'm pulling for it.

Same cattle market, very different margins.

The case count does not quantify lost production.

production.Monday's pork cutout recovered to eighty-six cents, up about a cent and a half as loins, picnics, ribs, and bellies advanced, offsetting lower hams and butts.

Loins eighty-six, up about three cents.

Picnics seventy-one cents.

Ribs one fifty-two.

Bellies ninety-six cents.

Hams seventy-eight.

Freight savings will depend on actual carrier rates and fuel surcharges.