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Royalfan5

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Royalfan5

  1. It was all his roommate, Gary Pinkel's fault.
  2. So the Cargill-Beef Plant in Schuyler Nebraska is being idled for two weeks. They’ve yet to have a major outbreak, and had been running ahead, so I think they’re mostly going down to let the outbreak happen and then hit the ground running as it’s over as they’ve got two weeks of normal production built up on site. While they’ve been ordered to stay open by the President, two weeks off, and two weeks on a full steam is probably going to better than 4 weeks half assed
  3. So for the afternoon livestock updates. Cattle slaughter runs were down 2K from Friday, but still above Wednesday's low day. Hogs were up 12K from Friday, and both were about 3-5% off last Monday. So the low runs held so far, and the hardest hit Cargill beef plants in Canada were re-opening today with both shifts, so if that is successful, I would think we will see similar things next week in the US, which should put the tightest meat supplies this week, but we are still probably deficit for the bulk of the month of May.
  4. Once we get packers back close to capacity it should back off pretty good. The biggest issue right now is the packer workforce has 0 trust in their employers for the most part, and rebuilding that is going to be a major issue, because you can't replace them with people who know what they are doing in choke points very easily.
  5. For your AM Livestock update. Fresh beef prices blew up out the weekend with choice blowing past $400, and we get getting close to doubling values in 4 weeks, with select up higher as well. Fresh pork was a little lower, but that report is a little more noisy so we will see if it stays lower the PM. Lots of talk about how the packing plants being mostly asymptomatic despite the high testing numbers, but we will see if they can reflect that in increased run rates today, and this week.
  6. In Lincoln we’ve went from 115 a day available to 300 a day, and they’re getting through the packing plants now too. It seems like we probably peaked in raw numbers this week too.
  7. Apparently we have folks protesting keeping the Smithfield packing plant in Crete, NE along with talk of a walkout on the Saturday shift. They kept it open on half shifts instead of the two week cleaning and restart hinted at earlier in the week
  8. On the viral load and meat packing plant note, the areas with packing plants with all sorts of folks testing positive aren’t seeing a huge surge in hospitalizations after the first wave. Likely because it’s a generally younger and fit workforce with the older workers in less strenuous roles. The Grand Island area saw a surge at first but it also had nursing home our breaks, which I’m sure tied together because cleaning staff at the nursing homes and the plant labor force overlap at home
  9. When I am on the AM ag radios, I do try to drop a "Good Day" as a signoff from time to time.
  10. For your afternoon livestock report, cattle runs through packing plants were off slightly but still ahead of Wednesday's low with a slightly bigger Saturday run expected, and with bigger cattle production should be past the low point if sustained. Hogs were down slightly from yesterday, but 20K off the low, with a bigger Saturday run expected as well. The Tyson Plant in Dakota City, NE continues to make JBS in Grand Island like they've done a good job with 670 of 4000 workers testing positive in the past week. They are expected to run on Monday after being idle the last two weeks.
  11. So for you AM livestock note, fresh pork values were up another 5% this morning, mostly because bellies went apeshit, they are now more than triple what they were two weeks ago, which was record lows, other cuts are flattening out. Beef values worked a little higher, but they are still about 40% higher than the old record and seem to be flattening a bit. Loads have ticked up so they backed up cattle are closing a little of the gap with heavier carcasses which should mostly find a home as hamburger.
  12. All of Nebraska's a pretty well packing plant tied at this point too. Killing hogs at Worthington will help take some of the pressure off the barns at least, I'd rather they sacrifice the ready hogs than the young ones so we minimize the echo shortage later on. I also should have noted we sold a lot of pork for export to China last week too, so it appears we are going to be pretty committed to cleaning out cold storage the greatest extent possible.
  13. So the packers showed some improvement today, cattle hit 80K for the first time this week, up 10% from yesterday, hogs are up about 22K from yesterday, about 10% better as well. Getting back towards 2/3rd of normal run rates. Still leaves a big hole but if we improve into the weekend the worst may be past there, still probably be hit and miss on certain cuts through to mid to late May.
  14. For your AM livestock report, fresh beef prices slowed their rise but are still moving higher with focus on reports that fast food is trying to secure as much grinding meat as possible, fresh pork is just about to $100 with freezer stocks getting drawn down more by non-traditional buyers. Doesn't seem like a lot of movement on the plant front but I've got guys able to ship steers for the first time in a month to Dodge City so hopefully that's a good sign.
  15. Final livestock note, beef values closed at new highs again, hopefully we are in the blow off phase now. Sounds like retailers are pushing panic buying up the chain there. Pork was higher but is more stable. Sounds like JBS is going to try and bring in a good chunk of cheap grinding beef soon as well
  16. Supposedly they've been doing temperature scans and what not. With the improvement rumored at the JBS plant in Grand Island, we're probably getting to the point within the plant that there's not too many more workers that can catch it.
  17. So livestock slaughter runs continued to decline with cattle down to 72K, and yesterday was revised 4K lower to 72K, and hogs were down 12K to 271K, so we are about to 60% on cattle run rates, and almost 50% on hogs. So no instant impact from the defense production act, it does sound like worker turn out is starting to improve which should start to show some improvement soon.
  18. So for your morning livestock update, fresh pork values were slightly lower with loins dropping off sharply. I'd anticipate the PM report shows gains as the loins looks fluky. Beef prices continued to skyrocket, with choice almost to $350, and showing no signs of a peak yet. I'd guess we will at least test 375 there.
  19. I have issue with the stimulus check, and wouldn’t have an issue with unemployment matching prior pay, but giving an effective raise To stay home isn’t a great incentive to help phase back in.
  20. Beef finished the days on new highs again, moving past $330, with pork still holding below $90. The number of boxed beef loads was 99, so were off about 10% from last week which isn't as much as the run rates has went down, likely reflecting some heavier animals with the back up, which is a least at little offset, we should be seeing the same in hogs too.
  21. So on the putting animals down front, a client that farrows for Smithfield said they told him that they won't take any hogs with flaws for sure to finish out of the current groups by mid-May, so that he probably out to start shooting the ones that won't make weight now so he doesn't have to do it at the last minute.
  22. Varies from plant to plant. For example JBS beef in Grand Island has about 800 positives out 3600 workers so far. Tyson in Dakota City is about 400 so far out of 4000. Smithfield in Crete is about 150 of 2000 so far. Crete was announced as to be idled yesterday, but they reversed course and are going to run half days now, which I don't know what good that will do, but I suppose now that their ordered to do something that's something. The general reaction of the meat industry sees this more as the gov't providing a liability shield for the packers, than actually doing anything constructive as far as restoring production.
  23. So the cattle runs slid to 76K today, with yesterday revised down from 81K to 77K which is a new low for this outbreak, hogs fell to 283K from 303K yesterday(revised down from 313K) both are now closing in on 60% of capacity. I was hoping we could get back above 90K and 350K week, but it's going to take a couple of big reopenings and no further losses. We will see if the executive order does much, but this is a labor issue, and unless they want to make them work at gun point, it's going to stay tough sledding for awhile. Best case is probably that we got 25-50% runs out of some of the closed plants next week.
  24. It's cool and damp, and everybody works shoulder to shoulder, and go home to multi-family living situations.
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