 Options for thin cows that have lost calves really depends on individual producers feed and financial situation. For young cows that have good production potential in the herd, it may be worthwhile if feed is adequate to go ahead and run them as drys and expose them during the upcoming breeding season. However, most of the time our production costs, our lack of income by not getting a calf out of those cows and potential market risks don't usually allow us to retain dry cows. But if we are retaining them, if our situation allows, we just need to make sure they get back in a reasonable body condition score prior to breeding. So for mature cows, we want them at least in a body condition score five by breeding. If producers decide to market dry cows, the first step is to evaluate cold cow prices. And again, it's going to really tie to that body condition score. And so the good news is we are coming into a seasonal high for cold cow prices. So that seasonal high usually occurs in July, but we have seen really good prices in April and May and should expect good prices into June and July as well. So I encourage producers to take a look at how those prices for cold cows are determined. And it's basically going to come down to the percentage of lean meat that they're expected to provide. So we essentially have four basic categories. The highest condition cows are going to be called breakers. And they're usually in a body condition score of seven to nine. So those are on the higher end of the body condition score scale from one to nine. That next class is going to be referred to as boners or sometimes boning utility. These cows are usually in a body condition score of a five to seven. And then our last two groups are called leans and lights. These cows are usually very thin with body condition scores less than four. And in general, these cows are going to be worth less because they're expected to have a much lower dressing percentage and possibly more carcass defects. In addition, light cows are going to generate a very low hot carcass weight. Typically 500 pounds or less. So if we look at cold cow prices based on those categories, you can see that breakers are up 29% and boners are up 14%. So that's the current marketing year. When we look at premium white cows or those that are fed a concentrate diet before processing, that market is increased by 25% compared to last year. So there definitely are some positives in terms of marketing those cold cows. So the first thing I encourage producers to do is to get a good assessment of body condition score on the dry cows and estimate where they're going to fall out in terms of market cow class and then consider how much body condition score improvement they need to make to move up in classification and possibly recognize that additional premium. So in terms of body condition score changes, it usually takes around 80 to 100 pounds to increase one body condition score. And producers are going to have to determine if they have the feed availability. So consulting with a nutritionist, getting nutrient analysis on any potential feedstuffs and then making up a ration formulation, sorting those cows by different body condition scores. Obviously, there's going to be some increased inputs in terms of time and labor in addition to the feed. And so it's really important to take a look at whether or not you're able and willing to do that or if it's best to just market cows immediately. What are some things to consider when making decisions about what to do with dry cows? I think it's really important that producers take a close look, an honest look at their financial situation, have discussions with your accountant, with your lender, maybe others on your management team to find the best strategy that's really going to minimize any financial loss to the operation, already experienced great losses. And so trying to kind of minimize our risk and take what we can get at this point is probably a good strategy. So obviously there are risks with prolonging ownership of cows that that might potentially go to market. And so not all of your thin cows are good candidates. If you've got really old cows, cows with with bad teeth, with structural issues, with health problems, you may want to go ahead and market those in a more timely manner. Obviously, assuming that they're healthy enough to go to market, we have to be careful of what we're sending to consumers. But it may be kind of a cut your loss situation rather than those cows eventually becoming non-marketable and basically losing all their value. So obviously other considerations are available to feed resources. What are your options heading into summer? That includes summer pasture, which may be still a little bit of an unknown at this point. But overall, I think we need to just take a look at what are we able to support with our current feed resources for the summer and even going into the fall and winter, looking at the price spreads between the market to cow values and what it's going to cost to replace those cows and then just looking at our retention rates and if we're going to meet our goals for our cow numbers. So those are some considerations and I encourage everyone to do their research and figure out a strategy that works best for them.