Page 21 - MWC 03-11-2021

Cattle Inventory Revisions The Midwest Cattleman · March 11, 2021 · P21

By Kenny Burdine, Livestock Marketing Specialist University of Kentucky, Josh Since the calf crop is not broken year. A very simplistic way to look
out by beef and dairy calves, one at this is to consider the ratio of
Maples, Livestock Marketing Specialist Mississippi State University, and James must look at combined beef and cows on January 1 to the calf crop
Mitchell, Livestock Marketing Specialist University of Arkansas dairy cow inventory for compari- for that calendar year. Going back

Several things have been writ- calf crop down by 1.9%. In the case son. But, holding everything else to 1960, this has averaged about
ten about the 2021 cattle inven- of 2020, this amounted to a reduc- constant, one would expect the size 1.122, which means there are
tory report, which continued to tion of more than 660,000 calves. of the cowherd and the size of the 1.122 cows for every calf in the
show reduction in the size of the A lot of analysts felt like feedlot calf crop to move together. While calf crop. For the year 2020, the
US beef cattle herd. However, placements really didn’t support the 2020 calf crop was revised estimated ratio of cows on Janu-
the revisions made to the 2019 the higher previous calf crop es- downward by 1.9%, the number of ary 1 to the calf crop was 1.158. In
and 2020 inventories have re- timate, so this downward revision cows that were estimated to have fact, going back to 1960, a higher
ally gotten more attention, and was not a huge surprise. calved in 2020 was basically un- ratio occurred less than 10% of the
raised more questions, than the However, a logical follow up changed (it was actually increased time and we have to go back to the
estimates for 2021. There is little question involves the estimated by a very small amount). 1970’s to find the last one. This
question that cattle inventory has number of cows in production. The calf crop measure is an es- doesn’t mean it is unreasonable,
decreased over the last couple of timate of calves born within the continued on page 24
years, but how much the cow herd
has shrunk is a bit less clear, and
these revisions certainly point to
a more rapid decrease in invento-
ries than previously thought.
USDA did make changes to
several of the 2019 and 2020 es-
timates and it is important to un-
derstand that revisions are very
common. Surveys are a major
source of information for these
inventory reports, but these num-
bers are adjusted as more infor-
mation becomes available. Hav-
ing said that, the revisions made
in the January 2021 report were
large, especially the revisions to
the size of the 2019 and 2020 calf
crops. They pulled the 2019 calf
crop down by 1.3% and the 2020

Callaway

Livestock
Center, Inc.

On I-70, 4 miles east of
Kingdom City, MO on outer road
573-642-7486

Feeder Sale
Monday
12:30 p.m.

1st Thursday Night

of Each Month
6:00 p.m.

Special Cow Sale

Jack Harrison

573-386-2138

John P. Harrison

573-386-5150