But the floods might just as well have drowned our corn that year, for the price of fat cattle fell on the Chicago market.

[tufguy]

We raised a bumper crop, bought feed cattle and fattened them with our corn. But the floods might just as well have drowned our corn that year, for the price of fat cattle fell on the Chicago market.

This is a paragraph from the book How To stop Worrying And Start Living by Dale Carnegie.

I don't understand this part "But the floods might just as well have drowned our corn that year, for the price of fat cattle fell on the Chicago market." Could you please help?

 

[emsr2d2]

They lost a lot of money. It didn't matter how they lost it. The result would have been the same if the corn harvest had been ruined by floods.

 

[Tarheel]

They raised cattle and fattened them with their corn. When the price went down they couldn't get as much for them.

 

[Skrej]

They successfully raised a lot of corn which left them with an abundance of cattle food. More food means bigger cattle. Cattle are sold on the market by weight, so bigger cattle should bring more money. Also, your profit margins are bigger if you can raise your own cattle feed instead of buying it. From this perspective, they were in a good position to make a lot of money when they sold the cattle.

However, when it came time to sell the cattle, the price per pound for cattle went way down. So even though the cattle were bigger, they didn't bring any more money than they would have brought if they were lower weight. They didn't make any more money than they would have with less corn to feed the cattle.

For example, if you sell a 500 lb. calf at $2/lb, that's a $1,000. An 800 lb. calf at the same price yields $1,600. More weight =more money at the same sale price.

However if you sell that same 800 lb. calf at only $1/lb, then you only get $800, which is less than the 500 lb. calf weighing 300 lbs. less at the higher sale price.

 

[tufguy]

They lost a lot of money. It didn't matter how they lost it. The result would have been the same if the corn harvest had been ruined by floods.

What do these mean"for the price of feed cattle" and "fat cattle fell"?

 

[PeterCW]

What do these mean"for the price of feed cattle" and "fat cattle fell"?

"Fat cattle" are beasts that are ready for slaughter. They will typically be sold to a specialist who will deal with the slaughtering and the sale of the meat to retailers.

"Feed cattle" are animals that have left their mothers and need feeding until they are ready for slaughter. British farmers call this stage "fattening".

In the passage the price of cattle fell between buying the feed cattle and selling them for slaughter.

 

[Skrej]

Feed (or more commonly 'feeder') cattle are young underweight cattle bought for the purpose of feeding them to fatten them up in order to sell when they reach a more desirable weight.

Fat cattle are the ones which have reached market weight. They're also referred to as market cattle, slaughter cattle, or just live cattle.