Even by commodities standards, it seemed like the perfect bull market: a boom in the price of livestock – from bulls and cows to chickens and hogs – as ranchers faced record feeding costs stemming from expensive corn and soyabeans.

Investors piled into the market this month helping to push live cattle futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the industry benchmark, to a 22-year high of 104.7 cents per pound, up 16.4 per cent over the past 12 months.