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SC KS | This might turn into a little bit of a rant so I apologize in advance. :) curious though if anyone knows anyone that’s involved in it or knows anything about it? As someone who grew up in the feedlot industry, but also have spent time in the last years in western SD and ranching, I do not understand how they’re going to make this work and where their getting their numbers.
First, no offense to ranchers on here, but the lady that’s in charge of this is a rancher, and in my experience, northern ranchers aren’t really up to date on the feedlot industry, or how to produce a good calf for the southern feedlot country, but that’s besides the point. I feel it’s possible she doesn’t know what she’s getting into. Especially since she thinks that western SD will come up with 2,920,000 head of fat cattle or Bison per year within 90 miles of rapid city.
Second, if The beef is supplied within 90 miles of rapid city, you would have to build, or start back up enough yards to hold 3 million head over the course of a year, and then produce enough corn to feed that many cattle. Since there’s very little irritation, there’s no guarantee there will be corn and hay every year. Considering the price of corn, and the cost of transportation, hauling feed in would be ridiculous.
Third, once they figure out that MT, WY, ND, & SD combined can’t produce that many head, they’ll have to go south into Cargill, Tyson, etc. country for cattle, until the big guys under cut them so much that they can’t get cattle from the south. Then there’s the deal with trucking again… they’re going to have to come up with 200-250 trucks per day to haul cattle from western ks, TX, OK, CO, NE. And nobody is going to pay crazy rates to haul a load of fats to South Dakota when they could go down the street to Denver, Dodge or Garden city, amarillo, etc. Faith, Belle Fourche, and St Onge had a terrible time finding trucks just for one day sales, let alone hauling 8,000 every day.
Fourth, there’s the marketing issue. They’re going to have to figure out how to get 8,000 head worth of beef out of South Dakota to grocery stores, when the big guys already have contracts with Walmart, Sam’s, etc. and there again we have a trucking issue since we already have a major shortage of trucks for just about everything but hopper bottoms lol
Anyway, I think it’s a great idea! But considering there’s no feed in that country, and that they’re so far removed from the feedlot world, I could see the big packing companies shutting them down in a hurry. And that trucks are hard to come by I think it’ll be hard to find 250 trucks, let alone anyone to drive them in todays day.
What’s y’all’s opinion?
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Rapid City Beef packing plant
