The cheering heard throughout cattle country didn’t just come from football stadiums large and small. It also came from feedyards large and small as cash sales for fed cattle took flight.

The weekly weighted average cash steer price for the Five Area region was $116.98 per cwt for the week ending Oct. 28. That’s $6.11 higher than the $110.87 that cattle feeders saw the previous week. The Five Area weighted average cash dressed steer price was $181.54, compared with $174.92 the previous week, a jump of $6.62 higher.

The Five Area average formula price was $177.16, compared with $175.87 the previous week, $1.29 higher. The Five Area region includes the major feeding areas from Texas up through Kansas and Nebraska, along with Colorado and Iowa. 

The Five Area formula sales volume totaled 205,928 head, compared with about $199,767 the previous week. The Five Area total cash steer and heifer volume was 110,446 head, compared with about 95,400 head the previous week.   

The estimated weekly total federally inspected cattle harvest was 617,000 head, compared with 614,000 the same week last year, only 3,000 head over last year. 

Nationally reported forward contract cattle harvest was about 48,000 head, compared with about 55,000 head the previous week. Packers have about 242,000 head of forward contracts available for November.       

The latest average national steer carcass weight for the week ending Oct. 14 was 896 pounds, 1 pound higher than the previous week but down significantly from 915 pounds the same week last year.    

The Choice-Select spread was $10.82 on Friday, compared with $8.72 the previous week and $12.95 last year.  

The latest national steer and heifer grading report for week ending Oct. 20 was 78.68% Choice and Prime, well over last year which was 75.39%. But it did slip a little from the previous week, which was over 79%.