January 27

1/27 - In Friday’s cattle report, the USDA said feedlot inventories on Jan 1st were 11.82M head, down 0.9% from a year ago. New placements onto feedlots in Dec were down 3.7%. Mexican feeder cattle imports were halted on 11/25/24 due to “new world screwworm.” The situation remains unresolved, which will leave the U.S. short roughly 300,000 feeders by Feb 1. In Jan’s WASDE, the USDA projected that beef output increased by 0.1% in 2024. That’s a remarkable improvement from the USDA’s mid-year forecast for a 4.8% production decline. However, the USDA is still projecting a 4.4% decline in beef output for 2025. The USDA says cattle prices averaged a record-high $187.12/cwt in 2024 and are projected even higher at $196.00/cwt in 2025. On the positive side, the percentage of heifers on feed are down 3.4% from a year ago, possibly a first hint that producers may finally be retaining more breeders for herd expansion.