Record Beef Prices Has Aging Ranchers Selling Off Herds And Cashing Out

A Colorado ranching family recently went under a $6.7 million contract to buy the Muleshoe Ranch just north of Torrington, Wyoming, which includes 4,300 acres with three center pivots and strong water rights.

The seller's decision to get out of cattle ranching reflects multiple pressures facing today's beef producers. He's well into retirement age, according to ranch real estate broker Cory Clark, while also struggling with labor shortages.

"It seems like it's harder to find ranch help," Clark said, identifying one of the factors driving the sale. Another motivator is beef prices are at an all-time record high. 

"They look at the beef prices today," Clark told Cowboy State Daily on Friday, describing how the seller decided to liquidate 350 head and make a complete exit from ranching rather than transition to another operation.

Prices for uncooked beef steaks are 198.43% higher in 2025 than they were in 1997, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the grocery store, a prime cut costing $20 in 1997 today costs $59.69. 

Clark said the Colorado buyers moving to the Muleshoe Ranch were pushed out by development pressure along the Front Range and saw eastern Wyoming as offering expansion opportunities unavailable in their home state.

And while record beef prices might seem like they'd motivate mass ranch sales with longtime operators seizing this moment to cash out, Clark said the reality is more complex.

"You would think that, but it's actually the opposite," Clark said.

Sure, some ranchers like the former owner of the Muleshoe are hanging up their spurs, but others want to keep riding the upward swing. 

"Those ranchers are getting historic prices for their cattle and they want to hold on for another year to enjoy the high market,” he said. 

The result is a historically low inventory for ranch properties across Wyoming and Montana, where Clark markets impressive spreads like the Muleshoe. 

"I've been doing this since 1996, and I would have to say the inventory as far as farm ranches is tougher today than it has been in the past,” he said.

Clark points to the Crow Creek ranch outside Broadus, Montana, as an example of the challenging market conditions. The 700-cow operation is listed at $11.7 million and sits 28 miles down a county road from town. 

"As far as getting groceries and getting kids to school and stuff, that's a little harder to do," Clark said, though he believes the ranch has significant upside potential given steady demand for American beef. 

Ownership Shift?

Other industry watchers point out that some ranchers are just selling off their herds while holding onto their ranches. They sense that this is contributing to a changing of the guard when it comes to who owns the cows. 

On the LaneCast Ag Podcast on Wednesday, host Lane Nordlund noted the current temptation facing longtime cattle producers.

"When you're looking at a $5,000 bred heifer and you've worked your whole life at this, why not cash out at the top end of the market?" he asked.

Nordlund put that question to Don Close, senior animal protein analyst at Terrain.

"No question, we're still getting reports and seeing advertisements of sales for complete dispersals," Close told Nordlund. "You add to that what we know about the average age of producers. I think this is a true changing of the guard of who are the cow owners in the U.S. and what's the structure of those businesses."

When Mark Eisele of Laramie County, Wyoming, looks at multigenerational operations, the 2024 president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association sees several factors in play: the ongoing drought, the international demand for American beef and the growing number of ranchers trotting into their golden years. 

“The age of operators is increasing,” said Eisele, who ranches outside Cheyenne. 

“They're in their early 50s to late 60s," he said, though he noted his 91-year-old father still works his ranch daily.

Estate tax relief has helped some families transition operations to the next generation, but the decision to sell often comes down to whether family members want to return to ranching. 

“Do they have anybody coming home or coming into the business?" Eisele wondered.

It’s Lose, Lose, Win

Eisele also credits quality improvements over the past two decades with helping drive up beef prices, along with reduced supply brought on by drought. 

"The quality of beef has increased tremendously in the last 20 years,” he said. “There's no blemish. We've got huge quality controls. People want beef. They don't have to buy it, but they seem to want it.”

However, Eisele cautioned against assuming windfall profits. 

"In our business, we lose money three, four, five years in a row, and then we might have one or two good years," Eisele said, pointing to the rising costs for fuel, equipment, insurance and feed.

"I have told producers, ‘You should lower your expectations because the herd will start to grow again, and if there's a shift in the economy, we might see pushback from consumers on price,’” he said.

Eisele also drew distinctions between the cost of beef and rising prices for eggs.

"Beef is not the new eggs as far as price spikes," Eisele said, referencing the avian flu crisis that devastated poultry flocks. "That was a collision of perfect storms with the bird flu causing a shortage of chickens and eliminating entire flocks across the country. This is a different kind of scenario."

Instead, Eisele attributes sustained high beef prices to robust demand that emerged during COVID-19. 

"People learned an important lesson during COVID that they could actually cook at home again, and we've never seen the demand fall off," he explained. "People learned versatility — if you choose the right cut, it's still affordable."

International trade developments have bolstered demand as well, he said, with new markets opening in places like the UK. 

"Our beef is considered to be the gold standard," said Eisele, who credits the Trump administration’s trade policies with improving the outlook for Wyoming beef exports. 

Summer Pasture

Rather than completely abandoning ranching, many operators are finding creative ways to adapt to market pressures while maintaining their connection to the land. 

Some ranchers are selling their cattle herds but keeping their ranches, then leasing grazing rights to other operators — a strategy that allows aging producers to reduce their workload while capitalizing on both high cattle prices and strong demand for pasture.

"There's some people that say they're getting up in years. With the high prices of cattle, they'll sell the cattle and then just bring in some cattle in the summer. That way they won't have to overwinter them," said Dennis Sun, past president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.

The strategy reflects broader market realities driven by the smallest cattle herd since 1970, with prices projected to remain elevated for at least another year, said Sun. 

"A lot of people are selling replacement heifers instead of keeping them, and they're still selling a lot of older cows instead of trying to get one more year out of them," Sun said. 

"Everybody thinks ranchers must be getting filthy rich selling their cattle, but expenses over the course of the year have come up so high that they're not making the money they should," Sun said.

One underlying question facing the industry remains consumer price tolerance — will sticker shock eventually slow beef sales? 

"We've always wondered in the last year or so, when would the consumer stop buying beef," Sun said. "They do switch maybe a little more to ground beef, but they're still buying beef.”

For consumers wondering when they can afford to toss more T-bones into their shopping carts, Sun didn’t have good news: "Beef's not coming down this year."

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.