US cattle inventory hits lowest since 1951
Beef prices soaring as a result
In its January Cattle Inventory report, USDA estimated that total cattle and calves in the United States were 87.2 million, the lowest since 1951, according to a recent market report from Bernt Nelson at the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The country’s cattle producers, he said, facing stress from multiple years of drought and high supply costs, have been marketing a lot of cows and heifers since 2020, so fewer of these female cattle are available to produce calves.
USDA’s July Cattle Inventory previously provided a breakdown of the US cattle inventory including the calf crop for the first half of the year. Without this report in 2024, it is much more difficult to estimate what cattle supplies look like for the remainder of the year. Farmers and stakeholders will have to wait until January to receive this data. In the meantime, analysts will be using what they do have available to piece together the overall market outlook.
Feedlot inventories are slowly reflecting the lower cattle inventory. In its July Cattle on Feed report, USDA estimated all cattle and calves on feed in the United States was 11.3 million on July 1, up 1% from a year ago. Heifers and heifer calves accounted for 4.48 million head. While this is up only slightly, this is near the record-high number of heifers and heifer calves for the July 1 report and makes up about 40% of the overall cattle on feed. Historically, heifers make up around 32% of the overall cattle on feed. This is a strong indicator that farmers are still not withholding heifers to rebuild the US cattle herd.
One particularly important metric the July Cattle Inventory would have provided is the size of the calf crop for the first half of the year. This is the time when most of the US calf crop is born. It takes about a year for a heifer calf to reach maturity for breeding. These calves that could be replacements will not reach breeding age until 2025. The first opportunity for herd expansion will be possible if farmers begin to withhold heifers from this year’s calves for breeding in 2025. This means the arrival of the 2026 calf crop will be the first opportunity on the horizon to increase the cattle inventory.
The 2023 July Cattle Inventory report estimated a Jan. 1 – June 30 calf crop of 24.7 million head. The record-low calf crop since the July Cattle Inventory survey began is 24.2 million in 2014. A drop of just 2% from last year’s calf crop would tie the record low. Addressed earlier, it is apparent that a high number of female cattle are still being placed on feed for slaughter rather than being withheld for breeding purposes. This means that a record-low calf crop for the first half of the year is possible.
