Marketing South Dakota Feeder Cattle

A special study was designed to determine the best time to market feeder cattle, taking into consideration both production and price factors. Lack of data concerning gains of cattle during the season prevented the completion of this part of study. A discussion of this problem is included in the second part of this bulletin to show certain important areas of research were further work is needed. The study was conducted by personal interviews with a representative sample of farmers and ranchers in the state. In selecting the sample, special emphasis was placed on getting information about marketing methods. The study was therefore designed to obtained a representative sample of producers of feeder cattle rather than of all farmers. For this reason the data cannot be used to derive state figures for the total number of feeder cattle sold or bought.