feeder"Read on Agriculture Online that stats Canada as of Jan. 1 stated cattle and calf inventory is at near record high. If so, where were all the cattle when NCBA was in Canada. Canadian ranchers and NBCA say the numbers are down. What is the truth?
The groups are refering to different classes of cattle. The feedlots are definately not full. Packers are down to 3 day weeks because of a lack of fats ready to slaughter.
However, ranches and farms have excess inventory, some calves held back waiting for prices to improve, some just timing the flow better. The real increase in numbers is old cows most places are over stocked some guys have a number of drys just eating away at their resources.
Lots of producers never preg checked last fall, they left the bulls in longer than normal and will calve into June or even later.
This year with the $200 set aside program designed to delay placing cattle in feedlots, lots of heifers were tagged with the hope that markets for the old cows might open up and there would be some demand for bred heifers.
