The stocker cattle business can be extremely rewarding when a producer follows all of the rules and devotes his or her time to the cattle purchased. The stocker cattle business can be extremely devastating if rules are not followed and the producer does not put in the time. What is this fool talking about? Give me a chance to explain, and I think it will all make sense in the end.

It seems stocker cattle producers are constantly battling the elements. It starts off with battling sickness, and then they have to figure out how to get them to grow. If the cattle don’t get sick and are growing, a tree is bound to fall on the fence with 127 head (due to ship tomorrow) visiting the neighbor.

As the 2016 fall calf run quickly approaches, cow-calf producers and stocker producers alike have business decisions ahead of them. The fall calf marketing period is usually full bore in October and November, which means many cow-calf producers will soon be able to calculate 2016 profits or losses.