An ag economist says there are a couple of factors contributing to the increase in cattle being placed into feedyards.
University of Tennessee ag economist Charley Martinez says placements were up 6 percent in the latest Cattle on Feed report from the USDA. “Some of that could be cattle that were meant to be on wheat pasture, finally hitting the feedyard,” he says. “Maybe they had to get rid of them quicker than they normally would given the droughts that are out in the Southern Plains.”
Martinez says the herd remains historically small, and there are still no live cattle being imported from Mexico.
He tells Brownfield that beef-on-dairy continues to impact the supply chain. “In that supply chain, those day-olds end up going to growyards or calf ranches,” he says. “And when they get unloaded into the beef supply chain, that’s when we see them being put in place into feedyards.”
The total number of Cattle on Feed was up 2 percent from 2025 levels and marketings were down 10 percent, suggesting fewer cattle were moved out of feedlots for slaughter.
