By David Anderson
Amid the drumbeat of bad news in the cattle market over the last month, including on-again, off-again tariffs, jawboning for lower beef prices, and now Tyson’s announcement that they will close their beef packing plant in Lexington, NE, in January, USDA released a cattle on feed report. (We’ll look at the impact of the plant closure on packing capacity in a future SAT). USDA caught up on cattle on feed following the shutdown when they released the COF report on Friday, November 21st.
The report did not contain many surprises. Placements and marketings were down 10 percent and 8 percent, compared to October 2024. The combination left the number of cattle on feed down 1.6 percent compared to November 1, 2024.
The most interesting, and important, number in the report was the number of heifers on feed. Heifers on feed is normally reported in the October report, but that was delayed due to the shutdown.
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