Markets this week are ending the summer in a downward trend with both the U.S. and Canada having a down week in the cash, cattle, and wholesale markets.
In the States, live, dressed and choice cutout all came in steady or lower. Labour Day buying is done and going into September it is back to school and back to reality, says Anne Wasko of the Gateway Livestock Exchange in this edition of the Beef Market Update.
It isn’t abnormal to see the cutout drop heading into September and October, Wasko says, as they are typically our worst months, and she is expecting that trend to hold true in western Canada through the next 30 days as well, as the dressed market in Alberta was five to seven dollars lower this week.
Farmers love to talk weather, and one place that environmental conditions, as well as other factors, have played a role is with total beef cow numbers in Canada. While the USDA skipped their cattle inventory report due to budget cutbacks, the StatsCan mid-year report shows Canadian beef cow numbers being down nationally two per cent at just shy of 3.5 million head, with every province reporting lower numbers. Compared to 2021’s report the country’s numbers are down eight per cent.
One of the things that Wasko mentions in this episode is that we can’t grow the cow herd until we start to keep some heifers. According to a StatsCan report, replacement heifers in Canada at 586,000 head last year, as well as this year, are the two smallest replacement heifer numbers since before 1970.
With a good amount of moisture throughout a lot of Canada this year, Wasko is expecting a busy September to November instead of the spread-out placement of cattle June to December that has been seen in the last few years. It’s going to feel like more cattle, as we’ve certainly concentrated it back to where it usually is, but it’s going to be busy and we’ve got cattle to place, Wasko says.
Listen/watch below for the full report:
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