An update on beef cattle herd rebuilding

The biggest question in the cattle industry continues to be that of herd rebuilding. Specifically, there are questions regarding the status of the beef cow herd in 2024, and, more importantly, how is the industry setting up for 2025 and beyond. Beef herd expansion involves two components: reduced cow culling and increased heifer retention. Direct measures of the cow herd inventory and replacement heifer inventories are only available in the January 1 USDA-NASS “Cattle” report, with the next release in late January 2025. In the meantime, it is challenging to determine what is happening in 2024.

There is data on beef cow slaughter through the year that does indicate the beef cow herd culling rate. The final rate is usually expressed annually as total annual beef cow slaughter as percent of the January 1 beef cow inventory. The annual beef cow slaughter total will not be available until after the end of the year. In the first 37 weeks of 2024, beef cow slaughter is down 16.3% year over year. Monthly beef cow slaughter can be expressed as a percentage of total cattle slaughter. On an annual basis, beef cow slaughter as a percent of total cattle slaughter is 97.5% correlated with the annual herd culling rate. A twelve-month moving average of this percentage provides an indication during the year of beef cow herd culling. The blue line in Figure 1 shows this moving average since 1987. The two major cyclical beef herd expansions in the 1990-1996 and 2014-2019 periods show how beef cow herd slaughter behaves during herd expansion.

In the two previous herd rebuilds, beef cow slaughter bottomed in 1992 and in 2016. The moving average reflects the previous twelve months suggesting that beef cow slaughter was at a low in the first year of herd expansion in each of these cycles.