Source: FARM DOC DAILY, UNIV. OF ILLINOIS, 7/24/17



USDA provided several key updates last week when it released the July Cattle inventory report along with its monthly Cattle on Feed report. The mid-year cattle inventory report provided the first estimate of the 2017 calf crop, which at 36.3 million head was 3.5 percent larger than the 2016 calf crop. The year-over-year increase in the calf crop’s size was slightly larger than in 2016, when the U.S. calf crop increased 2.9 percent compared to the prior year. This is the third consecutive year that the calf crop size has increased after bottoming out at 33.5 million head in 2014. The calf crop increase continues to point to larger slaughter cattle supplies in both 2018 and 2019, despite the downturn in profitability experienced by U.S. cow-calf operations. 

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