VALENTINE, Neb. — Beef prices have climbed to all-time highs, offering long-awaited relief for ranchers after years of tight margins. At livestock auctions across Nebraska, cattle are selling for record prices, and last week’s feeder cattle sale in Valentine shattered several national records.

For more than three decades, Greg Arendt has managed the Valentine Livestock Auction.

“It really isn’t a job if you like what you’re doing,” Arendt said.

Lately, he admits, the job has been a little more exciting—thanks to one record-breaking sale after another.

“We’ve never seen this before,” he said.

Arendt said he started noticing cattle prices climb in December, but they really took off this summer. According to the National Beef Wire, last week’s feeder cattle sale set 12 national records.

“The corn prices have gone down enough to incentivize buying more feeder cattle,” Arendt said.

In addition to lower feed costs, Arendt says fewer cattle nationwide and years of drought have also contributed to the unprecedented market.

“Part of that 28 million less cows versus 30 million maybe five, six, seven years ago is I think results of input costs. Input costs went up substantially because COVID changed our economy around so much. The packer wasn’t buying fat cattle. The chain was stopped. The supply numbers were high, and the packer couldn’t get them all processed and killed, so meat was high at the store, but fat cattle were cheap in the country,” Arendt said.

So how long will it last? Arendt said it’s difficult to predict, but he expects prices to stay strong for some time.

“Because we haven’t really seen the evolvement of the heifer retention,” he said.

An industry known sometimes for stress and uncertainty…

“It becomes kind of fun,” Arendt said.

...and for now, it’s making national history right here in rural Nebraska.