8/12/2023 0 Comments Wv feeder cattle prices![]() ![]() She also sells to restaurants, whose requirements force her to plan for each one’s needs. Jones sells to some larger customers such as butcher shops that take the whole animal. “I take them three or four at a time, about six or eight a month.” The cows are only slaughtered when Jones deems them “carcass ready.” Jones’ cattle are processed in Rich Creek, VA, and she is now looking at another processing plant in Lexington, VA. Jones finishes her cattle herself, taking about two years per animal and feeds them a diet of grass and hay grown on her farm. Prices are way up which is great if you’re selling them, but maybe not so great if you’re buying them.” “I purchase calves every fall from a local farm,” Jones says, lately about 40 at a time. Jones recently was awarded second place in the State Conservation Farm of the Year for her 192 acres and 80 head of cattle. Jennifer “Tootie” Jones of Swift Level Farm in Lewisburg is one of those farmers. This money circulates in the community which would otherwise go somewhere else.”Ĭommercial marketing of beef cattle is the more popular way of doing business in Greenbrier County, but other farmers take the direct marketing approach by finishing their cattle on their farms and then selling the beef directly to their customers. The average net cash farm income in Greenbrier County is $15,000, which can translate to “a new truck every other year from the local car dealer. “If you own some land, you can make some money,” he says. “The goal is to get them close to a processing center,” he says. Those cattle, usually about a year old or less, are then shipped off to the Midwest to be “finished,” or “fattened up at the feed lot” with grain. “You’re looking at an area where there are a lot of agricultural traditions.”ĭavidson says most Greenbrier farmers sell their beef cattle at auction. Greenbrier County is number one in West Virginia in beef production,” says Davidson. That’s 97 percent of the market value of products sold in the state. But, folks would do well to look closer, because every one of those cows has a price on its head, and beef cattle production in Greenbrier County is a major industry, bringing millions of dollars into the local economy.Īccording to the West Virginia Department of Agriculture’s Buddy Davidson, livestock sales in Greenbrier County equaled $74.6 million in the 2012 census of agriculture, and he says the majority of those dollars are from cattle. 60, or along any of the back roads that wind around the mountains, we may remark on the cattle on the hillsides or look beyond them hardly noticing them at all. Grazing cattle in Greenbrier County are so predominant, they’re almost part of the landscape. ![]()
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