CattleUSA Daily

Most producers can tell you cow count, rainfall, and how much hay is left. But the operations that stay broke even in good markets usually miss the same thing: they aren’t watching the right financial numbers often enough. This episode breaks down three metrics you should track monthly, not at tax time, because monthly numbers warn you while you can still fix it. Lauren covers cost per cow, breake...

Lauren and Emma kick off the year by getting brutally practical about herd rebuild decisions and the real economics behind keeping heifers. With cattle prices strong but input costs still climbing, this episode breaks down why “just keep more heifers” is not a strategy unless it pencils. They talk retention vs. buying bred females, breeding windows and lost dollars, why culling the bottom end matt...

Lauren and John open the year with a strong market update across multiple regions, highlighting higher prices, aggressive demand for bigger feeder cattle, and notable shifts in how buyers are using grass this time of year. From there, the conversation pivots to methane emissions and why cattle continue to be blamed despite decades of data showing their impact is minimal. John breaks down where the...

As CattleCon approaches, Terry Quam joins the podcast to walk through what actually happens behind the scenes of the beef checkoff and why producer involvement matters now more than ever. From how the checkoff is structured and governed, to why meetings are held alongside CattleCon, to real-world examples of crisis response like BSE and COVID, this episode pulls back the curtain on how producer do...

The first market update of the new year kicks off with Dan Gerhold and Samantha Cozza-Wright breaking down a cattle market that’s wasting no time rebounding. From a Santa Claus rally and feeder cattle pushing back above $350, to shrinking price discovery, tight placements, and ongoing uncertainty around the Mexico border, this episode dives into what’s driving early-2026 optimism and what could st...

Emma’s back and we’re going straight into one of the messiest, most avoided topics in agriculture: generational transition. With the average age of U.S. producers climbing and new “beginning” producers often starting later in life, the question isn’t just who’s taking over. It’s whether the operation is even set up to survive the handoff. We talk estate planning realities, why “equal” splits can d...

Meteorologist Gary Lezak kicks off the new year by breaking down what the long-range weather pattern is already revealing about 2026. After chasing a major West Coast storm to Lake Tahoe, Gary explains why this year’s unusually long weather cycle matters, how anchor ridges and troughs are shaping snowfall, drought risk, and storm tracks, and what producers should be watching as we head toward spri...

Dan Leahy has spent 20+ years walking into other people’s ranches and fixing the stuff nobody wants to name out loud. In this episode, he breaks down why ranch management is the real bottleneck, not just grazing practices. We get into why most “consulting” never gets implemented, why the human element drives everything, and how the collapse of family-based management is fueling a ranch labor crisi...

Emma is back, and today we’re tackling one of the most misunderstood conversations in ag: why the U.S. exports beef while also importing beef. If you’ve ever seen “we should just keep it all here” in the comments section, this episode is for you. Lauren and Emma break down what we actually export (high-value specialty cuts and off-cuts other countries pay a premium for), why we import (lean trim t...

John Campbell is back and he’s not here to recap another week of prices. He steps back and asks the bigger question heading into 2026: why does it feel like ranchers are getting squeezed from every direction, and what choices are actually left? John breaks down the producer reality behind “cheap food policy,” government pressure and paperwork, regulatory landmines that can kill a business overnigh...

Samantha Cozza-Wright joins the podcast for a post-Christmas market check-in, breaking down what a quiet holiday trade really tells us about where cattle markets are headed. With light volume, steady cash, and futures closing higher, the conversation turns quickly to the bigger forces shaping 2026. Samantha walks through Mexico border reopening expectations, seasonal demand drop-offs, Brazilian im...

Meteorologist Gary Lezak returns to break down a newly established weather pattern that’s already leaving clear fingerprints across the country. With a cycle length near 73 days, this is one of the longest Lezak Recurring Cycles observed in decades. Gary explains why storms are hammering California but weakening as they move east, how anchor troughs and anchor ridges quietly control where weather...

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...

This week’s conversation digs into the final stretch of 2025 cattle markets with Samantha and Dan breaking down the latest data, the holiday trade environment, and what early signals tell us about 2026. With a bullish cattle-on-feed report, surprising heifer retention, and consumer demand shifting toward cheaper cuts, the group parses out where leverage sits, what volatility still lurks, and why r...

Most ranchers drift into January with half-finished books, fuzzy numbers, and a mental list of decisions they’ll “get to later.” But if you want a stronger, more profitable 2026, the work starts now. In this episode, Lauren breaks down the 10 essential year-end steps that determine your clarity, your margins, and how prepared you are for next year’s volatility. From knowing your true cost per cow...

Grazing management is one of the most misunderstood and most financially consequential parts of running a ranch. In this episode, Lauren Moylan and Emma Coffman break down what rotational and regenerative grazing actually mean, why overgrazing now can cripple your pastures for decades, and how to approach winter forage and spring planning with realistic, financially feasible steps. Emma shares wha...

This week’s episode dives into a weather pattern that has finally revealed its true shape — and it’s a complicated one. Meteorologist Gary Lezak joins Lauren to break down the emerging 70–75 day LRC cycle, the extreme wind event sweeping across the Rockies, why Colorado’s snowpack continues to disappoint, and what all of this means for drought watchers across Kansas, Nebraska, and the central plai...

In this episode, Lauren sits down with industry veteran Marty Ropp to cut through the noise on genomics and what it actually means for cattle producers. Marty shares how genomic tools have finally caught up to the promises made 20 years ago, why he believes their biggest value is on the cost-reduction side, and how precision mating and DNA-informed cow selection can quietly add up to serious long-...

Warm temps, melting snow, and a half-marathon training confession set the stage for what turns into one of the most candid episodes of the year. Host Lauren Moylan sits down with market analyst and cattle feeder Dan Gerhold to talk holiday cattle markets, LRP strategy, and what 2026 might really look like for margins. Then Dan takes off the CattleUSA Insurance hat, puts on his feeder hat, and unlo...

Representative Tracey Mann returns to the podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on the Bridge 8 announcement, ag trade realities, input costs, and what farmers should expect heading into 2025. Lauren digs into whether the $12 billion in tariff-derived support will actually move the needle, how soon producers might see relief, and what happens if the trade negotiations everyone is banking on stal...

Winter is here, forage is fading, and a lot of cows are walking into the hardest part of the year underfed and overworked. In this episode, Lauren Moylan and advocate Emma Coffman get brutally clear about what that really means: every decision at the feed bunk shows up later in your calving ease, your BRD rates, your weaning weights, and the size of your check at the sale barn. From why a cow need...

This winter’s atmosphere is officially locked in, and it is not the pattern a lot of people were hoping for. In this episode, meteorologist Gary Lezak joins host Lauren Moylan to unpack the new Lezak Recurring Cycle, why the Colorado Rockies are sitting on roughly 40% of normal snowpack, and what that means for drought risk across Nebraska, Kansas, and the broader ag belt. Gary Lezak explains the...

When cattle prices finally bounce back, most producers’ minds go straight to optimism, not labeling law. In this episode, host Lauren Moylan and John Campbell walk through a sharp rebound in the sale barns at La Junta, Riverton, and Dodge City, why light calves are once again knocking on October highs, and what that could mean heading into grass turnout. Then the conversation takes a hard turn int...

The cattle market just put producers through one of the wildest years in recent memory, and this episode does not sugarcoat it. Lauren Moylan sits down with Dan Gerhold and Samantha Cozza-Wright to unpack a year defined by $400–$500 per head price swings, an $80 per hundredweight collapse in two months, dead cat bounces on low open interest, and a cash market that refuses to roll over. They dig in...

Ranch income can swing wildly from year to year, and diversification is the go-to solution most producers assume they need. In this episode, Lauren Moylan breaks down why diversification only works when it integrates cleanly into the operation instead of adding chaos. She lays out which income strategies actually strengthen a cattle business, the common traps that drain profit and time, and how ra...