Beef Herd Expansion Threatened In The Coming Weeks

By Derrell S. Peel

It’s April and pastures are, or should be, greening up in the southern half of the country. However, cold weather this spring has delayed pasture development in many areas. Winter conditions still exist in several regions in the northern half of the country where spring green-up is still a month away.

From a cattle perspective, conditions fall into three categories at the current time. Moisture conditions are adequate to abundant in most of the eastern half of the country. Marginal drought conditions are the norm in the middle of the country with persistent severe drought conditions in much of the West.   

Forage and crop conditions should improve rapidly in the Delta and Southeast in the next few weeks. Cool temperatures (and soil temperatures) is delaying forage growth and crop planting in the Midwest, Northern Plains and northern Rocky Mountain region. Warm and dry conditions are forecast for the Southwest and western mountain regions and the west coast.

Producers in wet regions will move forward with production plans with warmer temperatures. Producers in drought areas will remain retrenched waiting for improving conditions. Texas and Oklahoma, along with California, Nevada and New Mexico have the largest areas of severe drought (D3 and D4).    

It is producers in the marginal drought areas that must be prepared to move quickly to either act aggressively if conditions improve or to act defensively if drought conditions redevelop. According to the latest Drought Monitor, five states among the top ten beef cattle states have the largest areas (percent of state area) of marginal drought conditions (D1 and D2 on the D0 to D4 scale), including Iowa (57 percent); Kansas (85 percent); Nebraska (61 percent); Oklahoma (54 percent); and Texas (39 percent). With the exception of Iowa, all of these states showed strong indications of herd expansion with significant increases in beef replacement heifers on January 1, 2014.

In fact, the increase in replacement heifers in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas was 132,000 head, which is more than the net increase of 90,200 head of beef replacement heifers in the entire country. In addition, both Kansas and Oklahoma had 2013 increases in the beef cow herd. These four states accounted for 31 percent of the U.S. beef cow herd on January 1 and the ability of these states to maintain herd expansion plans will likely determine the overall impact on the U.S. beef cow inventory in 2014.