April 21

4/21 - In Thursday’s cattle report, the USDA said feedlot inventories on April 1st were 11.83M head, down 1.6% from a year ago. New placements onto feedlots in March were down 5.2% from a year ago. The U.S. imported 1.2M head of feeder cattle from Mexico last year before imports were halted on Nov 25, 2024, due to “new world screwworm” disease. Mexico accounted for 4% of our 28M beef cows in 2024. Imports from Mexico resumed on a very limited basis in Feb, however, the 4-month stoppage has left the U.S. short roughly 450,000+ feeders. So far, the USDA is projecting just a 1.1% decline in U.S. beef production for 2025. CME cattle futures hit record highs of $210.37/cwt on 4/2/25 and remain near-record high at $209.83 (4/18). Seasonally, it’s time to fire up the grill. Watch for trimmings and middle meats to run up a bit ahead of Memorial Day (5/26), Father’s Day (6/15), and July 4th.