229: Cattle Market Rebound, Record Pairs, and a Beef Checkoff Rant with John Campbell

John Campbell is back on the podcast, this time calling in from Oklahoma with a full breakdown of how the cattle market has snapped back from the fall crash. He walks through runaway calf prices at Winter Livestock in La Junta, high-dollar bred cows and pairs, and how Dodge City and Pratt are lining up with the rebound. Then he takes his auction barn hat off and unloads on the beef checkoff: where the money actually goes, why cattle producers should be asking harder questions, and how much is being spent on fluff instead of real demand. The episode wraps with some Christmas prime rib talk, Traeger confessions, and a reminder that expensive beef better be cooked right.

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Takeaways
• La Junta saw a huge rebound in calves, with 2–4 weights and 5-weights pushing back toward pre-crash highs.
• Light calves in multiple weight classes are effectively back to where they were before the late October–early November wipeout.
• Bigger feeder cattle (7–9 weights) have not fully recovered yet, but John is optimistic they’ll keep working higher as supplies stay tight.
• Stock cows, bred heifers, and pairs saw very strong demand: young spring-calving cows commonly brought upper-$3,000s to low-$4,000s.
• Older cows were still several hundred higher than earlier in the fall, driven by expectations of profitable first calf crops.
• Standout young pairs with light fall calves hit over $5,000, some of the highest pairs John has ever sold.
• Dodge City and Pratt echoed the same story: lightweight steers and heifers ripping higher, with some local all-time records on certain steer weights.
• As grass guys re-enter the market after the first of the year, John expects 600–650 lb steers with the right kind and condition to get even higher.
• John calls out the beef checkoff for weak consumer-facing promotion and for funneling a big chunk of producer dollars into NCBA and “sustainability” agendas.
• His bottom line: the cow factory is still short, the light calf market has real legs under it, and producers deserve more out of every checkoff dollar.

Chapters
00:00 Oklahoma, Border Jokes, and Holiday Road Miles
01:24 La Junta Runaway Calf Market: Prices, Weights, and Volume
03:57 Stock Cows, Bred Heifers, and $5,000 Young Pairs
05:41 Dodge City and Pratt: How Other Winter Livestock Yards Compare
08:02 Light Calves Nearly Fully Rebound, Heavy Feeders Still Climbing Back
09:35 Looking Ahead: Grass Demand, Tight Supplies, and Early 2026 Setup
11:09 John’s Beef Checkoff Rant: NCBA, Sustainability Money, and Recipe Cards
15:03 Christmas Prime Rib, Traeger Mishaps, and Wrapping the Year

cattle market, calf prices, feeder cattle, bred cows, bred heifers, cow-calf pairs, stock cows, Winter Livestock, La Junta cattle market, Dodge City cattle market, Pratt Kansas cattle, beef checkoff, NCBA, cattle industry politics, herd rebuilding, grass cattle demand, prime rib, beef demand