Week of 11/02/2026 – 11/08/2026
Sheep & Goat Square
Nobody knows where lambs and kids go next. You can know today whether the one you'd sell is worth more than the one you'd buy to replace it, and whether the pounds between them pay better than it costs you to put them on.
Choice and Prime hair-breed slaughter lambs on both sides.
Starts at $1.93, the full cost of gain in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's 2026 lamb feeding example. Slide it to your own.
| lb | 40* | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 110 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40* | · | · | · | |||||
| 50 | · | · | · | |||||
| 60 | · | · | · | · | ||||
| 70 | · | · | · | · | ||||
| 80 | · | · | · | · | ||||
| 90 | · | · | · | · | · | |||
| 100 | · | · | · | · | ||||
| 110 | · | · | · |
Green is ahead at your cost of gain, red behind; the deeper the colour, the bigger the money a head. A dot means the two weights are under 20 lb apart. Weights are each band's low end; the calculator uses the band's real average weight.
Work your own trade
Picking a cell fills these in with this week's averages. Change any of them to your own animals and prices.
Feed, labour, vet, death loss and interest, per pound put on.
Comes off the check, not off the pounds you have to replace.
Selling the gain
$24.88a head
The market is paying $2.35 a pound for the 59 lb you would be giving up, and it costs you $1.93 to put one on. That is $24.88 a head in your favour.
- Return on gain
- $2.35/lb
- Your cost of gain
- $1.93/lb
- Whole group
- $1,24450 head
- Most to pay for the replacement
- $463/cwt$208 a head
Your numbers, step by step
- The animal you sell: 104 lb × $309.75 ÷ 100 = $322.
- The one you buy back: 45 lb × $407.53 ÷ 100 = $183.
- The difference, $139, over the 59 lb between them is a return on gain of $2.35 a pound.
- You give those pounds up, so you want the market paying more for them than they cost you to grow: 59 lb × the gap between $2.35 and $1.93 = $24.88 a head.
How this is calculated
Value a head is weight × price per hundredweight ÷ 100. A 112 lb lamb at $294.00 is worth $329.28.
Return on gain is the difference in value between the animal you sell and the one you buy back, divided by the pounds between them. Sell that 112 lb lamb and buy back a 55 lb one at $401.00 ($220.55), and the $108.73 between them over 57 lb is $1.91 a pound.
Which way is good flips. Selling the heavier animal, the market is paying you for pounds you give up, so you want the return on gain above your cost of gain. Selling the lighter one and buying heavier, you are buying those pounds ready-made, so you want it below. The grid is coloured that way on each side of it.
Money a head is the pounds between them × (return on gain − cost of gain), signed so that either direction comes out right. At $1.93 the 112-for-55 trade above is $1.28 a head behind.
Most to pay for the replacement is what you get for the one you sell, less the cost of growing the pounds between them. Shrink and commission come off the sale check; they do not change the pounds you have to put back on.
The figures. Head-weighted averages per hundredweight from every sheep and goat auction USDA Market News reported for the week, grouped into 10 lb bands by each lot's reported average weight, using that average weight, never the middle of the band. Lots USDA quoted by the head are turned into $/cwt on their own weight. A band goes in the square only with 60 head or more, and two bands are priced against each other only when they are at least 20 lb apart: every cell divides a price difference by a weight difference, and over 10 lb a small slip in either price turns into a large, false return on gain. * marks a band where more than half the head sold at one market.
Cost of gain starts at $1.93 a pound: feed at $1.43 plus every other cost, from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's lamb feeding example (Parsons and Cozzens, “Is Lamb Feeding Profitable?”, January 2026, lambs fed from 70 to 140 lb). No published goat figure of the same standing exists, so the goat trades start there too. Yours is the one that matters.
Averages, not bids: yours will bring what they bring. Not financial advice.