What Ring Price doesHide
- $Your walk-away bid for each weight, at each barn near you, after freight home.
- ⚑At the ring, type the weight and the called bid: under or over your limit.
- ▤Your plan and cash by month, with a lender view and one-page PDF.
- ⎙A printable cheat sheet of every weight and barn for sale day.
- ✓Saves on this phone. No account needed.
Lender view
At $385.08/cwt for 500 lb steers, the sale price can fall $6.27/cwt (2.0%) before the lot loses money; past that, the note comes up short by the same amount.
No price floor on this plan. Add an LRP floor to see the worst case with insurance.
What an ag lender looks at, from the same dated ledger as your bid. Estimates under the terms on your plan, not a loan decision.
The plan borrows 100% of the cattle and the costs, so there is no cash of yours in the lot. Most lenders want some. Change the borrowed shares on the plan.
If the sale price falls
You pay $385.08/cwt. Each row lowers the resale price; costs, gain and interest stay as planned.
| Market | Profit /hd | Note at payoff /hd | Lot short |
|---|---|---|---|
| As planned$311.26 | $50 | $50 left | — |
| −$10.00$301.26 | -$30 | $30 short | $2,971 |
| −$20.00$291.26 | -$109 | $109 short | $10,942 |
| −$30.00$281.26 | -$189 | $189 short | $18,912 |
| −$40.00$271.26 | -$269 | $269 short | $26,883 |
Note at payoff: the sale check pays interest, then principal. "Short" is still owed after the check, per head bought. Change the step on the plan (what-if sale price move).
Loan-to-value by month
| Date | Cattle value | Owed | LTV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase day100.0 hd · 500 lb | $192,540 | $195,240 | 101% |
| Dec 199.7 hd · 532 lb | $196,770 | $198,930 | 101% |
| Jan 199.1 hd · 594 lb | $211,241 | $206,549 | 98% |
| Feb 198.6 hd · 664 lb | $225,505 | $214,937 | 95% |
| Mar 198.1 hd · 727 lb | $236,588 | $222,555 | 94% |
| Apr 197.5 hd · 797 lb | $246,896 | $231,034 | 94% |
| Payoff, before the sale check97.0 hd · 860 lb | $254,460 | $238,734 | 94% |
Owed = principal plus interest accrued and not yet paid. Cattle value is our estimate: head still alive × weight to date, less 2.0% shrink, × a price that slides from what you paid to the $311.26 resale as they gain. Purchase day uses what you paid.
Estimate, not a note: Actual/365 fixed (leap day in the numerator, 365 in the denominator); cost dates treated as advance dates; 100.0% of the cattle check and 100.0% of operating costs drawn; interest on drawn principal only.
Every financing assumption
Estimate, not a note: Actual/365 fixed (leap day in the numerator, 365 in the denominator); cost dates treated as advance dates; 100.0% of the cattle check and 100.0% of operating costs drawn; interest on drawn principal only.
- Actual/365 fixed (leap day in the numerator, 365 in the denominator)
- Bank interest is on outstanding principal only. Undrawn line room is not charged. No commitment fee is invented.
- Interest accrues and is not added to principal. A monthly statement, by itself, does not capitalize interest.
- Each receiving and wheat cost is treated as a bank advance on that cost date. That is an estimate, not proof the bank advanced the money then.
- Borrowed share of the cattle check: 100.0%. Borrowed share of operating costs: 100.0%. The rest is your cash. Your cash is still a cost. It is not bank interest. No return on your own money is added unless you set one in the plan.
- The max bid includes interest on the cattle check itself. A higher bid borrows more and costs more interest. Subtracting feed and then ignoring that loop overstates the bid.
- Death dates are not in the plan. Feed is figured as if every bought animal ate the full turn, which is the high feed side. Debt on the cattle check does not disappear when an animal dies.
- Head sold are head bought minus the death percent. Sale weight uses head sold. Costs of bought cattle stay in the total. Death loss is not charged again as a second markup.
- Shrink of 2.0% is applied once to live sale weight to get payweight.
- The note is paid off on the ship date.
- Selling costs taken out of the check have no interest days before payoff. A commission percent applies once to gross sale receipts.
- Sale proceeds pay accrued interest first, then principal. This form does not collect an earlier principal paydown. An earlier paydown would lower interest.
- A line limit does not change the borrowed share and does not turn a shortfall into equity. The economic bid assumes every stated draw is funded. If those draws do not fit, that bid is not finance-feasible. The largest purchase that fits is reported separately.
- One rate for the whole turn. No index, spread, or floor is applied.
- What-if bands are ours: sale price ± $10.0/cwt, feed cost ± 15.0%, gain ± 0.25 lb/day, wheat days ± 14. Not a forecast.
- Target bid keeps the profit per head bought in the plan. Break-even bid is the same ledger with that profit set to zero.
- Nearest-cent figures can sit a fraction off the unrounded ledger. The cover bid is the purchase price rounded down to the cent. The cover sale price is rounded up to the cent.
Keeps this plan in this browser. No account.
What's saved?
Save on this phone keeps the plan in this browser only. Nothing is sent to Cownty, and clearing the browser's site data erases it. Your last ring check is kept the same way. New accounts are off for now.
Informational only, not advice. Futures: USDA LSPDFSS, Nov 13, 2026. Sources
Feeder futures settlements as printed by USDA (USDA AMS LSPDFSS (National Daily Feeder & Stocker Summary PM)): Nov 339.025, Jan 335.350, Mar 332.050. USDA report.
Where the selling defaults come from (type your own on the plan):
- Sale shrink 2%. USDA prices Texas direct feeder cattle on net weights after a 2-3% shrink. We use the low end, 2%. Cattle hauled to a barn and weighed off the truck lose about this much. USDA AMS Texas Direct Cattle Report (AMS_2710), week ending Nov 6, 2026
- Commission 2.5%. Texas sale barns usually charge 3-4% of the gross. Posted Texas schedules show 4% with a $20/head minimum. We use 2.5% as a typical default, a little under those schedules, because load lots, video sales and flat per-head fees often come in lower. Type your barn's rate. Texas A&M thesis, Changes in Texas Livestock Auction Markets 1969-2014 (3-4%); Gulf Coast Livestock Auction posted fees (4%, $20/hd min) · posted fees
- Selling costs $45/head. Checkoff, yardage, brand inspection and trucking out, per head sold. Texas A&M's 2024 Rolling Plains grazeout stocker budget carries $23/head marketing before trucking. This is our estimate. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, 2024 Stocker Calf Budget, Grazeout, Rolling Plains (D3)
Bid limits come from your own numbers, past USDA-reported barn sales (Cownty's head-weighted averages of USDA AMS lots) and CME feeder futures settlements as printed in USDA's daily LSPDFSS report, held flat to your sell date. They are not a forecast or a quote. Interest is an estimate under the terms on the plan, not a lender statement. Check with the barn and your lender before you buy.