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Cargill is shutting down its Milwaukee beef plant and cutting 221 jobs because the U.S. cattle herd is too tight to keep every old kill floor fed. The board is skittish, packer margins are ugly, and diesel is still high enough to hurt. In this Thursday 4/23/26 Friggin’ Farm & Ranch Report, we break down what that Cargill closure really signals about the cattle cycle, packer leverage, and plant towns — then walk the tape from cash cattle and boxed beef inversion all the way out to crude, diesel, fertilizer, and policy. We hit: – Live cattle, feeders, hogs, cash trade, and the CME Feeder Index – Boxed beef still running Select over Choice and packer margins around –$195/head – Corn firm, beans softer, KC wheat hanging in – WTI back near $93, Brent over $100, and AAA diesel sitting around $5.49 – EIA showing crude builds but big gasoline and distillate draws – Fertilizer sticker shock on anhydrous, urea, DAP, MAP, and potash – Sale barn pulse from OKC West and Joplin, plus bred cow and pair values – Horse market highlights out of Fort Worth, Vegas, and Heritage Place – War reel from the Strait of Hormuz back to ranch fuel, freight, and urea – Farm Bill credit limits, China soy going quiet into the Trump–Xi summit – Screwworm and rural broadband as the slow‑burn threats Tone calls at the end: cattle neutral‑to‑cautiously bullish, feeders soft, hogs firm, corn steady, beans soft, crude hot, diesel still too high, fertilizer nasty, rates neutral‑friendly. If you live off cattle checks and diesel tanks, this episode is built for you. Move your ass — we’re burnin’ daylight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump kicks the can on the Iran ceasefire, and Iran answers by grabbing two more ships in the Strait of Hormuz while firing on a third. EIA prints a surprise crude draw — 1.9 million barrels pulled when the street was looking for a 2.2 million barrel build — and diesel is sitting at $5.511 at the pump with WTI riding $91–$92. Meanwhile the cattle board has printed five straight red days, June live at $242.875, even as cash holds $248 and boxed beef stays inverted with Select still a buck over Choice. On today's Friggin' Farm & Ranch Report for Wednesday, April 22, 2026, we walk through: • Why live cattle is correcting on paper while the country trade and the cutout refuse to blink. • What a 4.1 million barrel bullish swing in one EIA print means for your diesel contract and fertilizer bill. • How Superior Livestock just sold a record 57,077 head and why 750-pound steers at $408 and 500-pound calves at $552.50 do not look like a "market top" in the country. • The war reel out of Hormuz, what "operationally closed" really means when Iran controls 20% of global crude flow, and how many seized ships it takes to put WTI at $95–$100. • DTN's latest fertilizer board — anhydrous back over $1,000, urea up 34% month over month — plus why every major input on your balance sheet runs through somebody else's choke point. • Rural Americana: five stories that'll make you feel better about the next generation, and three gut punches from rural hospitals, drought, and school consolidation. • Policy and macro: Farm Bill clock, DOJ packer probe, HPAI in dairy, screwworm watch, USMCA review, Trump–Xi summit, H-2A wages, and why nobody is cutting your operating note rate anytime soon. Tone calls to close it out: • Cattle board — bearish near term, oversold and due a snap-back if cash holds. • Cash cattle — firm. • Cutout — bullish, with broad-based beef demand. • Corn — bullish bias. Beans — neutral. Wheat — bullish on KC drought. • Crude and diesel — bullish, lock in if you haven't. • Gold and silver — bullish, fear trade and industrial bid both on. Lock your diesel, watch packer bids like a hawk, track the ship count in Hormuz — and remember, it's a "don't screw up" market, not a "get rich" market. Move your ass, we're burnin' daylight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cattle futures are bleeding red, but the country trade is still hot as a branding iron. On today's Friggin' Farm & Ranch Report for Tuesday, April 21, 2026, we walk through the seventh straight down day in live cattle while OKC National, Joplin, Salina, Beaver County, and Lone Star are still moving big runs at stout money. June fats closed 243.50, down 8.50 off last week's record, but 500-pound heifers are bringing 503 and running-age pairs are tagging 4,700 a head in the country – the kind of dissonance a spreadsheet doesn't explain. We pick up Day Two of the DOJ's criminal antitrust probe into Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef and talk through how that headline is weighing on the board even with cattle on feed, placements, and slaughter all saying "tight." Boxed beef is still inverted with Select trading over Choice, and we break down what that weird twist means for packer margins and rancher leverage. New editorial direction kicks in this episode: less war, more dirt road – more sale barn, more horse market, more rural Americana. Inside this show: • Markets Flash – live cattle, feeder cattle, lean hogs, corn, beans, wheat, crude, diesel, fertilizer, Fed funds, prime, gold, and silver, all run quick and dirty. • Cattle & Beef Deep Dive – futures correction, DOJ headline risk, consumer pushback on 9-dollar burger and 22-dollar ribeyes, boxed beef inversion Day 2, cattle on feed, slaughter pace, and a 73-year-low herd with a Mexican feeder import ban still in place. • Sale Barn Pulse – receipts and price tone from Lone Star Wildorado, Oklahoma National, OKC West, Joplin Regional, Salina Livestock, and Beaver County Stockyards, including 533-pound heifers at 503 and running-age pairs up to 4,700. • Horse Market – NCHA Super Stakes winners in Fort Worth, Lone Star Spring Catalog sale prices, Heritage Place Winter Mixed averages, and what they say about ranch geldings and performance-horse demand. On the input side, we look at WTI holding 90.88 after the Iran spike, diesel still north of 5.40, and why that 847-dollar urea number may be the floor through summer if Persian Gulf ammonia and urea shipments get hung up. We hit Fed funds, prime, and why Powell is likely to sit on his hands while your operating note stays north of 7.75 percent. War Reel is trimmed to three minutes: Iran ceasefire clock, tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz way below normal, ship insurance jumping, and what that means for your fuel bill and fertilizer ticket – not another drone-footage highlight reel. Rural Americana closes it out with six stories you won't see at the top of the hour: Montana and North Dakota FFA kids stepping up, a Wisconsin farmer co-op landing a USDA grant, USDA killing 49 of 50 ILCMA land-access projects, a rural ER closure in Jacksonville, Arkansas, the Nebraska Rural Response Hotline lighting up again, and a 150-year-old Kansas newspaper that refuses to die. Policy and macro on the back end: Farm Bill amendment deadline, CCC borrowing authority, tariffs baked into your iron, land getting financialized out from under young producers, plus "On This Day," NBA playoffs, MLB, and Better Barrel Races in Oklahoma City. If you or somebody you know is in a bind, write this down and pass it on: Nebraska Rural Response Hotline – 1-800-464-0258. Free, confidential, since 1984. Move your ass — we're burnin' daylight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hormuz opened, oil crashed, then Iran slammed the door shut again and the U.S. Navy shot a hole in an Iranian cargo ship for good measure — all while the latest Cattle on Feed report quietly confirmed the bull story for cattle. In this episode of the Friggin’ Farm & Ranch Report, we walk through a “cautiously bullish, elevated risk” market: COF placements down 7.67% year over year, on feed down 0.53%, but futures and feeders still selling off for a third straight session. We hit cash cattle at 248 live and 388 dressed, feeders getting hammered with the CME Index back to 377.67, and boxed beef demand strong enough to collapse the Choice/Select spread to 54 cents. Then we swing through corn under the 4.50 pain line, an 11.45% faceplant in WTI on Friday, and why that diesel relief may be short‑lived if Iran makes good on its retaliation threats once the ceasefire clock runs out Wednesday. War Reel covers the rapid escalation in the Strait of Hormuz — from “world exhale” on Friday to ship seizures and canceled talks by Monday — and what it means for your fuel bill, fertilizer, and grain flows. We wrap with the Farm Bill timeline, new sanctions and USDA rules, a brutal Southeast/Southern Plains drought that’s driving herd liquidation, and the same old reminder: this is a don’t‑screw‑up market, not a get‑rich market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cattle markets take a breather after Tuesday's all-time high of $253.60 on April live cattle. June fats down almost $3 at midday, feeders hammered $1-$4 on higher corn. But don't panic — cash hasn't traded yet this week, Fed Cattle Exchange listed 1,222 head with bids $2.46-$2.48 and not a single animal sold. This is a cash-led bull market and sellers are holding the line. The Hormuz blockade expanded this morning to weapons interdiction. 13 vessels turned back, 10 Iranian-flagged tankers rebuffed, 10,000 US forces active in the blockade. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: "locked and loaded on your critical dual-use infrastructure." Brent bounced nearly 4% to $98.61. National diesel at $5.62 — twenty cents off the all-time record. Ceasefire has 5-6 days left; round-two talks possibly this weekend in Pakistan. PLUS: Secretary Brooke Rollins reportedly targeting July 7 phased reopening of the Mexican border to feeder cattle starting at Douglas, AZ. Screwworm sterile-fly facility breaking ground in South Texas. Grains: May corn $4.51¼ up 8¢, beans up 9-11¢, wheat fractionally higher. Drought steady at 50.18% of the Lower 48; relief rains across parts of TX, OK, LA, and the Midwest, but the Southwest stays dry. Severe weather returns Friday and Saturday — tornadoes, baseball-sized hail, and damaging winds from eastern New Mexico to South Central Missouri, broadening across the Southern and Central Plains Saturday. Fence Post Politics: Farm Bill stalled in the Senate, expires Sept 30; Section 232 tariffs still biting animal pharma; USDA FY27 proposal cuts 19%. On This Day: Donald Forsha Jones (b. 1890) — father of double-cross hybrid corn. 1996 — Oprah's mad cow segment triggers the Texas cattlemen's lawsuit (Cactus Feeders' Paul Engler leads; they lose). Sports: A's split four with Texas, 10-9 and tied for the division lead. White Sox in town tomorrow — Aaron Savale on the mound vs. Munetaka Murakami. Sponsors: Lone Star Stockyards (Wildorado, TX) — Foster Brothers Bull Sale Friday April 17. Atkinson Livestock (Atkinson, NE) — special bred cows & pairs auction Tuesday April 21. Subscribe at burningdaylight.substack.com. Dashboard: burning-daylight-report.vercel.app. Don't let your butt crack, and move your ass — we're burnin' daylight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Friggin' Farm & Ranch Report on Burnin' Daylight. Cattle just printed 252-dollar highs, feeders are hot again, boxed beef finally quit that upside-down nonsense, and diesel's sniffing 5.60 with no sign of shame. Nebraska's wearing burn scars, 40,000 head are out of place, USDA's talking about cracking the Mexico feeder tap, screwworm's edging north, and BLM swears there's 24 million acres of federal grass sitting there if you're stubborn enough to chase it. We're not here to cheerlead the board. We're here to walk through what this mix of record cattle, hot fuel, and busted-up country actually does to your cost of gain, your grazing bill, and your cattle check -- so you don't turn the best market you've seen in years into the dumbest set of decisions you've ever made. Also the new camera setup only made the camera look better. The operator remains unchanged. Subscribe at burnindaylight.substack.com | Dashboard: burnin-daylight-report.vercel.app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jake and Matt are finally back and ripping around the league for their (slightly late) 2026 MLB “Opening Day” special. They start with the Detroit Tigers: last year’s brutal division collapse, the playoff run that followed, and why a roster built around Scooble, McGonigle, Colt Keith, Parker Meadows and a deep bullpen might make them the team to beat in the AL Central this year. From there they hit all the early storylines hardcore baseball fans actually care about: Juan Soto and Brent Rooker already hitting the IL, Justin Verlander’s latest setback, George Springer’s busted toe, and whether A.J. Hinch is leaning too hard into matchups and analytics with the arms he’s got. Next up is a full lap around MLB: Dodgers and Padres both looking like juggernauts, Sasaki’s redemption arc after last year’s struggles, Shohei back on the mound, and why the Pirates, Royals, D‑backs and Padres all feel like “are they for real?” teams two weeks into the season. Jake and Matt break down how the AL and NL Central really stack up, why the Rockies and White Sox are suddenly kind of fun to watch, and what Murakami, Luis Robert and some of the other imports and young bats might do over a full 162. They wrap with way‑too‑early division and playoff picks, some degenerate betting talk, and a little youth baseball life mixed in. If you’re trying to lock in on the 2026 season without sitting through four different studio shows, this is your episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Crude finally gave a little back, but diesel didn't, wheat got drunk again, and the cattle market still refuses to blink. In today's Friggin' Farm & Ranch Report, we walk through day two after the Hormuz shock: WTI backing off into the low 90s, diesel still north of $5.60, wheat ripping 8% in a day, and live cattle camped out in record country. We hit the board first -- April and June live, heavy feeder trade with the CME index closing the gap, hogs stuck in the mud, corn and beans acting tired, and HRW wheat riding a rented war-and-drought rally. Then it's the sale barn pulse: Atkinson Livestock, OKC West, Clovis, Torrington, Billings, and Utah all putting real-money tags on calves, replacer females, and bulls in a 75-year-low cow herd. On the horse side, the A Man About A Horse cull index ticks higher for the first time in a long while, broke ranch geldings hold, registered ranch-broke horses trend up, and projects get cheaper -- same message as the cattle ring: finished product gets the check, "someday" gets punished. We close with crude, diesel, the E15 waiver, fertilizer carrying the Hormuz premium, and a war reel from the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea and Black Sea. Then On This Day takes us back to Black Sunday 1935 and The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. It's not a get-rich market. It's a don't-screw-it-up market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live cattle just printed an all-time record — $251.77 on the continuous chart. Cash cattle in Iowa hit $250. And crude oil ripped above $104 after the U.S. Navy blockaded Iranian ports. Diesel's north of $5.60 and headed to $6. Urea is up 46% year-over-year. It's a record-revenue, record-cost market — and the guys who keep their head are the ones who'll still be ranching next year. Today's show: • Livestock — June live cattle $249.20 (contract high), feeders $374.82, hogs $103.72 (4th straight down), cash cattle $250 in Iowa• Grains — Corn flat at $4.40¼ (faded the rally), beans down 13½¢, wheat up double digits on the war bid• Energy & Inputs — WTI $99.08, diesel $5.64/gal, urea $838/ton, DAP $863/ton, fertilizer supply at 75% of normal• Rates & Metals — Fed funds 3.50–3.75%, prime 6.75%, gold $4,742/oz• Cattle Deep Dive — JBS Greeley strike resolved (93% ratification, 3,800 workers back), boxed beef inverted (Select above Choice), Cattle on Feed report Friday• War Reel — U.S. naval blockade operational, Hormuz exports down 76%, 400+ tankers stranded, Houthi threat to Bab el-Mandeb, fertilizer crisis• Policy — Farm Bill stalled, new federal grazing MOU, Colorado River water cuts, WOTUS update• On This Day — April 13, 1860: First Pony Express rider arrives in Sacramento Brought to you by Lone Star Stockyards — real people, real competition, real prices. Send us your sale reports. Subscribe. Share with your neighbor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s Weekly Wrap is a full barn. JBS Greeley’s workers are back on the line with no contract, diesel jumps another 24 cents to $5.64, and USDA’s April WASDE reminds everybody there still aren’t enough cattle and there’s too much wheat. We break down live and feeder cattle, cash trade, slaughter pace, boxed beef, and what a below-capacity kill floor means for your fats and your calves. On the sale barn side, we run the Sale Barn Double-Shot with cattle runs across the West plus a firm using-horse market, and we tip the hat to sponsors Lone Star Stockyards in Texas and Atkinson Livestock Market “The Old Reliable” up on Highway 20 in Nebraska. Then it’s grains, inputs, and pain: range-bound corn and beans, wheat trading a war-and-drought risk premium, diesel screaming higher, fertilizer stubbornly expensive, and interest rates that refuse to back off. We hit drought maps, Washington State’s fourth straight drought emergency, and what that means for grass, hay, and stocking rates. War Reel covers the Iran front, Hormuz and Red Sea shipping risk, and the Black Sea grain corridor – not because we like it, but because it’s why your fuel bill and fertilizer freight won’t calm down. We wrap with Forest Service HQ moving west, the Farm Bridge deadline, sports shenanigans, and an “On This Day” run from the Titanic to a Florida Porsche joyride. Sponsored by: Lone Star Stockyards (Wildorado, TX) – https://www.lonestarstockyards.com Atkinson Livestock Market “The Old Reliable” (Atkinson, NE) – https://www.atkinsonlivestock.com Markets, war, drought, and bad decisions – all tied back to what it means for your cows, your crops, and your fuel bill. Move your ass – we’re Burnin’ Daylight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's Friggin' Farm & Ranch Report is a "don't screw up" kind of market. Live cattle in the high 240s, feeders still stout, May corn in the mid-$4s taking some pressure off the bunk. Cash rundown from OKC West, Clovis, Billings, and a horse market with starch back in the cull floor. Inputs: diesel at $5.643/gal, WTI near $98, DAP/urea still painful. Drought hammering the southern Plains and Southwest. War reel: Ukraine grinding, Israel-Hezbollah trading shots, Hormuz still a choke point. Policy risk meter at 48/100. Freedom Framework overall: 41/100 — defensive. Watch your inputs. Sponsored by Lone Star Stockyards — catalog horse sale Saturday April 11 at 11am Central. lonestarstockyards.com Subscribe and get the full dashboard at burnindaylight.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

War, ceasefire, and a cattle market that refuses to roll over. In this Friggin' Farm & Ranch Report for Wednesday, April 8, 2026, Matt walks through a wild 24 hours where Trump's Pakistan-brokered two-week truce with Iran knocked crude down as much as 18%, only for the whole deal to start cracking before the ink was dry. We talk Hormuz, Lebanon, OSINT, and what a "ceasefire" actually means when tankers, missiles, and diesel bills are all tied together. From there, it's one clean after-close market segment: - Live cattle holding in the high 240s with tight supply still doing its job - Feeders clawing back earlier weakness on cheaper corn and snug calves - Corn/beans/wheat leaking lower into the bell as war and weather premium come out - Metals ripping on a late fear bid while stocks puke into the close in a classic risk-off flush Fence Post Politics hits the Farm Bill, environmental lawfare, and the AI data-center land war that's chewing up irrigated acres, water, and cheap power. Drought and herd numbers get their due, with tight beef cows and tight grass still the main story in the West. We close with On This Day, some sports, and a reminder that local zoning boards might be the last line of defense between your cows and a server farm. If you're trying to make sense of war headlines, diesel receipts, and a cattle market that won't quit, this one will get you caught up enough to make decisions without flinching. Move your ass -- we're burnin' daylight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

War premium, ugly diesel, tight cattle, and DC nonsense – today’s Friggin’ Farm & Ranch Report (April 7, 2026) runs from the ring to the war zone and back to your wallet. Matt kicks off with Lone Star Stockyards’ run at Wilderado – 1,168 head with feeders $10–$20 higher and calves sharply higher on a light test – then walks through fats, feeders, hogs, and a grain board trading war, weather, and rumors. He lays out crude over $100, national diesel around $5.64, DAP at $682, urea at $549, potash just under $400, prime at 7.75% and feeder finance at 8.25%, plus a hot sale-barn pulse from Nevada to Oklahoma and a big Superior run that shows just how aggressive buyers are on light calves. The WAR REEL dives into “Operation Epic Fury,” the largest volume of U.S. strikes on Iran so far, continued Russian-Ukrainian slog, 400+ wounded U.S. troops, and what missiles over Hormuz and the Red Sea really mean for oil, freight, and your fuel bill. Matt breaks down OSINT, Telegram, and legacy media spin, and why the only thing that matters is what actually got hit and who pays the bill. From there it’s H5N1 in more than a thousand dairy herds, tighter EID rules, New World screwworm creeping north with a sterile-fly plant in Texas, and a hard look at the 45Z “clean fuel” tax credits that turn your tillage, nitrogen, and manure into someone else’s carbon score. He closes with a quiet but important Colorado property-tax change for pasture-based outfits, some “On This Day” history, and a quick run through March Madness and early-season baseball. For working cowboys and farm & ranch families who live and die by moisture, markets, and policy, this is your daily sitrep. Subscribe to Burnin’ Daylight on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get podcasts, and get the full market dashboard and premium write-ups at burnindaylight.substack.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's show is a war-premium, tight-cattle, DC-on-fire kind of day. $110 crude, JBS strike Day 11, Trump's prime-time Iran address, the Farm Bill and PRIME Act moving in Congress, cattle price transparency, grazing and WOTUS, and a drought picture that's burning up the Southern Plains. All of it, straight through. Sponsored by LoneStar Stockyards — Amarillo, TX. Real markets, honest weigh-ups, buyers who show up to bid. Topics: Cattle markets | Energy & crude oil | Grains | JBS strike | Iran & Hormuz | Farm Bill | PRIME Act | Cattle price transparency | Grazing MOU | WOTUS | Southern Plains drought | On This Day — April 2 Full post + transcript: https://burnindaylight.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the Bell for Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Dow rallied 274 points on ceasefire hopes while the Pentagon loads a third carrier strike group into the Gulf. Wheat lost 3% in a single session the day after USDA said we're planting the fewest wheat acres since 1919. Diesel is $5.40 a gallon. Nobody in cattle country is laughing. Today's show covers USDA Prospective Plantings fallout, cattle board recap with fats at 244.05 and feeders at 368, the disconnect between Wall Street and the war, diesel at $5.40 nationally, JBS Greeley Strike Day 17, War Desk update on Operation Epic Fury Day 33 with a third carrier group and 82nd Airborne deploying, Colorado wolf program, E15 politics, On This Day, and tonight's MLB slate. Brought to you by Lonestar Stockyards — Wildorado, TX. Sale every Tuesday at 11 AM. lonestarstockyards.com Subscribe at burnindaylight.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices