OLDHAM COUNTY, Texas (KVII) \u2014 A report released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that right now were at an all-time low over 75 years when it comes to cattle in the United States.<\/p>\n
The number of beef cows has dipped across the Lone Star State, as they saw a record low of January placements at feedlots at just 290,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest issue here in Texas has been the drought, as we all know, so lack of forage, so there\u2019s been a reduction in the cow herd in Texas,\u201d said Ronny Kirkland, general manager of Kirkland Feedyards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we look at our current cattle on feed inventories here in Texas, we have 7% fewer cattle on feed this year than we did last year,\u201d said Ben Weinheimer, president\/CEO of Texas Cattle Feeders Association.<\/p>\n
The numbers show a sharp decline in Texas beef cattle, raising the question of why some beef packing operations are expanding capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as the packing capacity, we are seeing some increase in capacity, some changes within the industry,\u201d said Kirkland. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of infrastructure being built in the Texas Panhandle, as they get ready and prepare for hopefully higher numbers coming in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe primary factors in determining whether or not the cattle herd number increases or decreases are related to, first of all, the price ranchers receive for their cattle and second, how much pasture they have that is available to graze cattle from year to year,\u201d said Weinheimer.<\/p>\n
In order to reverse this trend of cattle numbers being so low, what\u2019s needed now is consistent rainfall month after month, year after year. <\/p>\n
Slow soaking rains are preferred, but due to the severity of the drought, any form of moisture is badly needed.<\/p>\n
USDA report flags 75-year low in U.S. cattle as Texas drought shrinks herds (KVII)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OLDHAM COUNTY, Texas (KVII) \u2014 A report released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-508180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}