The January Cattle on Feed report from USDA showed the fourth consecutive month of declining feedlot inventories starting in October. The Jan. 1 on-feed total for feedlots with capacity of 1,000 head or more was down 2.9% year over year. The Jan. 1 feedlot total of 11.682 million head was larger than the December 2022 total by a scant 9,000 head but still below the November total of 11.696 million head.
It looks increasingly like the early November seasonal peak will hold. If so, the November total was 4.1% below the previous seasonal peak in February 2022 and suggests sharply tighter feedlot numbers going forward.
December marketings were down 6.1% year over year, close to pre-report expectations. The marketings number is in line with December fed (steer and heifer) slaughter, which was down 5.9% year over year. Feedlots appear to still be current, though the lower December marketings may reflect delayed shipments due to the December winter storm.
December placements were down 8% year over year, also as expected. Monthly feedlot placements were down year over year in nine of the 12 months of 2022. Total placements the last six months from July to December—which accounts for almost all cattle in the feedlots currently—is down 3.1% from last year.
The latest report also included the quarterly breakdown of steers and heifers in feedlots. The steer total on Jan. 1 was down 4.5% year over year. Steers in feedlots have decreased on a year-over-year basis for six of the last seven quarters going back to July 2021. The feedlot heifer inventory on Jan. 1 was down by 0.5% year over year. This is a small decrease, but significant, as it is the first year over year quarterly decrease in feedlot heifer inventories since July 2021.
Large heifer numbers in feedlots supported the 4.8% year-over-year increase in heifer slaughter in 2022, the largest heifer slaughter total since 2004. The decrease in feedlot heifers does not, at this point, reflect heifer retention, but simply a lack of heifers due to large heifer slaughter the past two years.
The Cattle Inventory report to be released on Jan. 31 will include a feedlot total for all feedlots. The total U.S. feedlot inventory for Jan. 1 averages 122.9% of the monthly Jan. 1 total and accounts for feedlots smaller than 1,000 head capacity. This suggests that the Jan. 1 feedlot inventory is expected to be 14.4 million head, down 2.3% from 2022. — Derrell S. Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist
