Weekly Beef Production and Cattle Slaughter Report
This week’s beef production is estimated at 532.1 million pounds, a 1.0% decrease from last week’s 537.2 million pounds but up 0.5% from last year’s 529.2 million pounds...
Source: Rob Cook, RobCookKC@gmail.com
Weekly beef production down 1%, Cattle weights up 5 lbs from last week
This week’s beef production is estimated at 532.1 million pounds, a 1.0% decrease from last week’s 537.2 million pounds but up 0.5% from last year’s 529.2 million pounds. Year-to-date beef production has reached 22.3 billion pounds, a slight decrease of 0.6% compared to last year’s 22.5 billion pounds.
Weekly cattle slaughter is estimated at 615,000 head, a decrease from last week’s 623,000 and notably lower than last year’s 636,000 head. Year-to-date, cattle slaughter stands at 26.4 million head, down 3.8% from last year’s 27.4 million head.
Live cattle weights are estimated at 1,421 pounds, up from last week’s 1,416 pounds and significantly higher than last year’s 1,382 pounds. Dressed cattle weights are at 867 pounds, an increase from last week’s 864 pounds and up from 834 pounds last year.
This ongoing trend of higher weights is offsetting some of the reduction in slaughter numbers, stabilizing beef production totals despite lower head counts year-to-year.