Cattle On Feed Report Shows Increase

While a month late, the USDA Cattle on Feed report shows feed lot inventories as of January 1 is 2% higher than 2018 figures.  That's after December placements were down 2%.  More important, the report offered a break-out of how many heifers were in feed lots.

“And in this case we're looking at about 4.4 million head,” said USDA Livestock Analyst Shayle Shagam.

He added what's important is the proportion-- what percentage of the feed lot inventory was made up of heifers.  And that was 37.7%.

“That's up from 2018, where it was 36.2%. However, if we compare it to October 1^st, the proportion was 37.8%,” Shagam noted.  “So, what we're looking at is still a relatively high proportion of heifers on feed, which we got a bit of a signal from in the July first inventory report where producer sentiments toward retention of animals was a little bit weaker.”

We'll get a more solid look at this toward the end of the week, when the USDA releases its twice-yearly cattle inventory report.

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