Cattle on Feed Numbers A Bit Of A Surprise

A record for March placement of cattle and calves in feedlots in the history of USDA's Catalog Feed Report Series. Over 12 million head as of April 1st, that was up two percent year over year. Even with draught a major factor in this increased inventory, USDA Livestock Analyst Shayle Shagam said findings such as this, as well as increased heifer and heifer calf placements from the previous year, may have been surprising to industry analysts.

"Because industry analysts were expecting a sharper decline in the number of placements during March.  That did wind up giving them a cattle on feed number on October 1st, which was above their expectations and may, from a industry annual standpoint, indicate larger numbers of cattle which will be coming out during the summer quarter and maybe put some dollar pressure on fed cattle prices."

Marketing of fed cattle during March were down 2% from 2021 at two billion head.

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