Continued contraction in the nation’s cattle feed lots. The numbers from USDA’s May Cattle on Feed Report show cattle inventory for May 1…

“An estimated 11.55 million head of cattle were in feedlots with over 1000 head capacity. That’s 1% less than a year ago. During the month of April, 1.66 million head of cattle were placed into feedlots, which is 6% less than a year ago. During the month of April. 1.87 million cattle were marketed from feedlots, which is 10% higher than a year ago. However, when taking account the two extra slaughter days that were in this month compared to last year, the marketing rates were about the same.”

USDA livestock analyst Michael McConnell says the May Cattle on Feed Report was notable in that…

“This is the first time in several months that the inventories were below a year ago, despite the fact that we’ve had relatively smaller total cattle inventories over the past year, we’ve been seeing a large amount of placements of cattle into feedlots, particularly in the fall coming out of last summer, when we had very dry pasture weather conditions that prompted a lot of producers to place their cattle and feedlots.”

However, based on improving pasture conditions in several parts of the country…

“With good pasture conditions, there’s more incentive to keep the cattle on pasture, rather than marking them into feedlots. What’s going to be critical in the coming weeks and months as cow calf operators basically make decisions on breeding, or in some cases they already have, one of the critical points of the year where producers decide whether or not to retain heifers and breed them, or whether to market them to the feedlots and essentially get the revenue from them.”

At the moment, cattle previously placed in feedlots due to dry pasture and drought conditions are getting fed and ready for marketing. And as McConnell points out…

“The numbers suggest that we still have a large proportion of cattle that are in feed lots that have been in feedlots, for more than 150 days, which means that there should be a steady supply of cattle, ready to be marketed and market weights and process into beef in the coming weeks and months.”