US Cattle Inventory Up 3 Per Cent from 2015

US - As of January 1, there were 92.0 million head of cattle and calves on US farms, according to the Cattle report published on Friday by the US Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

2 February 2016

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North America

This is the highest US cattle inventory since 2011, with the inventory up by 3 per cent from 2015.

Other key findings in the report were:

There were 92.0 million cattle and calves, in the United States as of January 1, 2016, up 3 per cent from last year. Of this total 39.6 million were all cows and heifers that have calved.
There are 30.3 million beef cows, up 4 per cent from last year.
The number of milk cows in the United States increased slightly to 9.32 million.
All cattle on feed increased to 13.2 million, up 1 per cent from 2015.
US calf crop was estimated at 34.3 million head, up 2 per cent from 2015.

To obtain an accurate measurement of the current state of the US cattle industry, NASS surveyed about 38,000 operators across the nation during the first half of January.

NASS interviewers collected the data by mail, telephone, internet, and through face-to-face personal interviews. NASS asked all participating producers to report their cattle inventories as of January 1, 2016.