Cattle slaughter was 665,000 head last week, much closer to where it needs to be to move through the supply of cattle. As of today, week-to-date, slaughter was 1,000 head more than last week. But there’s a surfeit of cattle due to bottlenecks carrying over from last year and drought conditions pushing cattle off of pasture. Paradoxically, cattle slaughter through May was 6 percent above the five-year average, but it has not been enough to boost fed cattle prices. That will ultimately take a change in the inventory of market ready fed cattle inventories.   Beef cow slaughter has been nearly 1.4 million head through May, the largest since 2010. Coupled with heifer slaughter, cattle inventories dropped to their record low in 2...

TAGS – Livestock, North America