I agree that crop prices are a large factor today but the cow herd numbers were headed down long before today's high crop prices.

We could say that there have been low cattle prices relative to crop prices.  That can be cured by crop prices coming down significantly ( I would not hold my breath waiting for $2 or $3 corn again) or cattle prices rising faster than crop prices. A possibility.

Mark, as far as the "4 phones calls" possibly bringing cattle prices back down to $70/cwt range --- those folks making the 4 phone calls may be able to do that. However they may also soon afterwards find themselves with few cattle to buy at that price.

Those "$70/cwt" cattle prices might even accelerate the trend Pofarmer is talking about here. Because unless those "4 phone calls" can also bring down the world wide price of corn, and maybe alternative feed grains  as well,  they are going to make the cattle price to corn/wheat/beans prices even more skewed in favor of forget the cattle and grow grains, if you possibly can.

And with current and emerging corn growing technologies, more and more folks in traditionally cattle areas can in fact grow corn profitably. Hwy 281 in SD for example: east of 281 row crops were a part of the mix, west of 281 was traditionally cattle and maybe wheat country.  Today there is a lot of profitable corn grown west of 281 and with developments such as the drought-resistant corn talked about on the crop talk board there will likely be even more in the future.

jmho.

Jim at Dawn