BINGO. This smells like bovine excrement.
You are correct-those are feedlot/factory farm operations-I grew up on a small family ranch in W Texas-and I live in a rural county now-there are plenty of locker plants nearby where local ranchers can get livestock slaughtered-and butcher shops that will buy that meat and sell it to people like my neighbors and me who insist on grass fed free ranged meat. Feedlot beef goes mostly to big box markets in cities-if I wanted some, I’d have to drive 25 miles to the nearest HEB or Walmart-same for veggies from Cali-I prefer local and organic food.
Didn’t pres Trump just fix things so that the packing facilities that service the big feedlots and factory farms will stay open to process meat-why would anyone be wasting perfectly good livestock-trying to drive up the price?