Cattle has been in a bull market for quite a while. But how long can the rally last? USDA chief economist Seth Meyer told farm broadcasters that has yet to be determined.

“You talk to some of the cow-calf folks, and yes, those feeders are worth a lot of money. But the decision is, do I take the cash now, or do I retain that heifer and hope that I’ll make that money two years from now on, on a fed out animal? And so I talked to a lot of cow calf operators, and they’re certainly hesitant to expand, maybe maintain some of the animals that they have. And yeah, we’re in a contraction phase. And I’m happy to say my NASS colleagues have given me back my cattle report for July, so we’ll see if we turn.”

Meyer says we should learn a lot more in a couple of months.

“The near-term record feeder prices has that effect of not wanting to hold those animals back because the it’s so there’s so much money to be made right now. Do we have good forage conditions? Do they want to hold them? Will they be able to support that cow calf pair? So I’ll be really interested to see. The last January report suggested that maybe that cycle was slowing a little bit. We’ll see if we get a turn in the July report, so I think this is a really important report that I’m really glad to have back.”