Miles City, Montana

Market report for Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Data sourced from USDA AMS

Compared to last week: Yearling steers and heifers were too lightly tested develop any market trend. Steer calves under 550 lbs sold sharply lower with most sales 50.00-70.00 lower, steer calves over 550 lbs sold sharply lower with most sales 30.00-45.00 lower. Heifer calves under 550 lbs sold sharply lower with most sales 50.00-70.00 lower, heifers over 550 sold 25.00-35.00 lower. Demand was mostly moderate for heavy offerings. A few load lots of calves were seen this sale and demand was moderate to good for these offerings. Packages of calves sold on mostly light to moderate demand. Quality this week was average to attractive. Most calves were un-weaned with a few packages of weaned calves seen. CME feeder cattle positions have weakened considerably over the past week with several days of limit lower and expanded limit lower movement seen. The October contract from last Tuesdays close through yesterday lost 27.425, not including todays lower contract movement. Buyers all showed moderate to good demand for calves, however at sharply lower prices. Calves with 2 rounds of vaccinations sold with the best demand. This caused some price overlap as calves with both spring and fall preconditioning shots sold with strong 8.00-10.00 premiums this week. Demand for calves strengthened as the sale progressed. This was especially the case for light weight calves which sold some of the highest price offerings of the day from 5pm to 8pm or later. Quality today was mostly attractive to very attractive. This weeks buyer pool was large and similar to last week. Market activity was mostly moderate to active this week. Weigh up cows sold on good to very good demand. Feeding cow demand was very good this week with a very large feeding cow buyer pool noticed. Feeding cows sold generally steady on high quality cows suitable to feed to premium white. Buyers showed very good demand for lean cows as buyers seek cows with lots of quick compensatory gain. Lean feeding cows sold 1.00-2.00 higher with packers looking for short term feeding cows and private feeders also looking for cows to feed or turn out on stubble. Too few slaughter cows sold this week to develop an accurate market trend, however steady undertones were noticed. Slaughter bulls sold generally in a very narrow comparison. Young age cows suitable to feed or rebreed sold on very good demand. These offerings sold generally steady in a narrow comparison.