Dairy producers sent 265,000 cows to slaughter in Federally inspected plants in December, 34,000 more (15%) than in December 2009 and 24,000 more than in November.
The reasons may have been three fold: First, cull cow prices have been extremely good, exceeding $50/cwt in most areas of the country. That makes a 1,500 lb. cull worth $800 or more. Second, there was fear that had tax provisions not passed, capital gains would be lost in 2011. That created a good incentive to cull cows in December rather than wait until the new year. Third, there are plenty of heifers around—both in producers own pens and in neighbors’. So replacements are fairly easy to come by, and reasonably priced.
For the entire year, however, culling was actually down slightly. In 2010, 2.807 million cows were slaughtered, about 0.3% fewer than in 2009. In 2009, 2.815 million were sent on Hamburger Heaven.
Those numbers are skewed, however, because of the Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) program’s herd retirement. In 2010, just 31,159 cows were culled through CWT. In 2009, 200,493 cows were taken.
For the complete USDA report, click here.
