Nebraska’s beef cow herd numbered 1.56 million head on January 1, down 1% from last year according to the cattle inventory released Friday by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. One must go back to at least 1960 to find fewer beef cows in the state. Nebraska’s herd is down 20%, or 381,000 head, since the most recent peak in 2019. In comparison, the U.S. herd is down 13% over the same period. The largest Nebraska herd on record occurred in 1975 when 2.37 million cows grazed the state’s verdant pastures, the same year the Vietnam War ended and Queen released “Bohemian Rhapsody.” This year marks the seventh consecutive year cow numbers have declined. The state’s herd remains fourth in terms of size trailing Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Texas and Missouri also saw declining cow numbers while Oklahoma’s were the same as last year.
U.S. beef cow numbers were down too, off 1%, at 27.6 million. Replacement heifers nationwide numbered 4.71 million head, up 1% from 2025. Replacement heifers in Nebraska were up 5,000 head to 280,000, up 2% (Figure 4). Nationwide, the calf crop last year was 32.9 million head, down 2%, and the smallest since 1941 according to Derrel Peel, a livestock economist at Oklahoma State University. Nebraska’s calf crop was 1.5 million head, down 1%.
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