Real Agriculture’s Shaun Haney sat down with Brian Perillat, with Canfax, at last week’s Canfax Cattle Market Forum to talk cow herd expansion and contraction, feeder profits, shipments south and more.
To the good, Perillat says that there are plenty of rosy outlooks out there on the demand side, in the feed market and at the cow/calf level, however that does mean feedlot operators are likely to see profit margins thinning for 2015. What’s more, an estimated 450,000 head moved south in the last year, cattle that could have been fed here. He discusses what that means in the interview below.
And what of that cow herd? Are we still seeing high heifer slaughter? Is the cow herd also continuing to contract? Perillat shares his insights into when and if we’ll see stabilization of the cow herd, and also comments on where ranchers are investing their breeding dollars, including on the bull side.