An ag economist says there’s still no clear signs of expansion in the cattle herd.
Josh Maples with Mississippi State University Extension says heifers held back for beef cow replacement were up 3 percent in the Cattle Inventory report. “Yes, it’s an increase and it’s the first increase since 2015, which is important,” he says. “But 3.8 million head is still the second lowest half of retention number that we’ve got going back the last 50 years.”
He tells Brownfield the 2026 calf crop number was also small. “So, all this tells us that feeder supply, the number of calves that are going through stockyards this fall is still shrinking,” he says. “We’re not at a point where we’re saying, hey, at least we’ve got the same number of calves as we did last year. That’s not true yet.”
Maples says the July Cattle on Feed report showed heifers made up more than 37 percent of cattle in feedlots. “We didn’t continue to see this drop in heifer percentage that we would need to see to really think that we were in some sort of expansion point here,” he says. “Over 37% is still not yet to a point where I think it’s really indicative of a rebuilding phase.”
The USDA has all Cattle on Feed up 2 percent on the year. Placements were down 3 percent, and marketings were down 3 percent.
With the exception of placements, the USDA’s numbers came in near pre-report expectations.
