In our discussion of the impact that higher feed costs are having on cow-calf operators (DLR dated May 20) we also should have noted that while the liquidation of the US cow herd still continues, a significant part of the increase in weekly slaughter is due to more Canadian cows in the mix. After an absence of several years (since May 2003) Canadian beef producers were finally allowed last November to again ship cattle 30 months or older to the US market. Since then, about 75,920 head of Canadian slaughter cows have been sent to US plants for processing. This implies that since the beginning of the year, Canadian slaughter cows have made up about 2.6% of TOTAL weekly cow slaughter in the US.

E-Livestock Volume	5/22/08	5/21/08	5/15/08
LE (E-Live Cattle):	6,301	14,338	11,132
GF (E-Feeder Cattle):	351	767	347
HE (E-Lean Hogs):	6,502	8,631	8,375

But how big has been the impact of Canadian cows in the overall increase of US cow slaughter numbers? The attached chart seeks to address that question. We made two assumptions when creating the chart. First, we lagged Canadian cow numbers by a week to account for transportation. Maybe some cows were slaughtered the same week that they were reported in the export data but we assumed that all of them were slaughtered in the next. Second, we assumed that the reported Canadian cows destined for slaughter were both beef and dairy animals. While it would be more helpful for understanding the beef herd liquidation to focus just on the beef cow numbers, we did not know how to ascertain the number of Canadian origin beef cows in the mix. The green bars show the increase in the number of total Canadian slaughter cows for any given week. Because there were no Canadian cows allowed last year, all weekly Canadian shipments are included in the growth, averaging about 3000 head a week since the beginning of the year. The red bars show the increase or decrease in US domestic cow slaughter numbers and the blue line indicates the overall increase or decrease in weekly cow slaughter in the US. Bottom line: In the last six weeks, Canadian cow imports have accounted for about half of the total increase in US cow slaughter numbers. Year to date, Canadian cows have accounted for 2/3 (68%) of the overall increase in US cow slaughter.

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