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Napanee, Ontario | been hearing lots of talk of increased heifer retention, and while likely true, will it be enough to overcome the cull slaughter rate? And the demand from feeders trying to place animals? Remember how much placements are up... younger cattle for sure, but perhaps not all of the increase...
The Jan report showed that Beef cows declined from (in millions) 29,297 to 29,042.
Beef replacement heifers were up 2% from 5,380 to 5,470.
So while culling declined in 2013 vs 2012 rates, it still largely outpaced the rise in heifer numbers. Essentially, just to keep the herd # flat, beef cow replacement heifers needed to increase another 3% or 160,000 head on the Jan report. But this still wouldn't have done it, as this next number threw another big wrench into that possibility:
"Other heifers" which is the biggest category next to beef cows, declined by a massive 450,000 animals from 9,202 to 8,741.
Where did they go? On feed obviously, and the cattle on feed number was still down 5%. Imagine what the COF would have been if these "other heifers" had not been put into yards by guys bidding up feeders on the first big move in the fall...
Despite this, we heard several articles about heifers getting kept back, but really it's just a play on categorization. The reality is that all heifers - when including the "Other" category which no one seemed to bother considering, continued to decline.
So I'll be watching these TWO - not just the ONE 'replacement heifer" category, which the article writers in Feb only wanted to focus on. Of course the trade and barn buyers weren't fooled - feeders kept going up, and placements kept climbing yoy, coming from all those "Other cattle" LOL.
Yes, that was Jan and this report my look a lot different. A lot of that feeder price might have been made up from a reversal in those above mentioned trends, which exacerbates the tight FC supply.... but we will all find out how much and by what amounts soon enough. Like I said, gonna be a big report.
Edited by OldMcdonald 7/13/2014 19:16
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going from no corn worry's to no cattle worries?
