Livestock Marketing Information Center
In The Cattle Markets
Updated: 6/2/2025
Record High Cattle Prices
The cattle markets start the summer moving into record-high price territory. The 5-market weighted average cash fed cattle price pushed past $225/cwt while prices in the southern plains were around $220. Live cattle futures contract prices are at a discount to cash and have struggled to break $215.
Livestock Monitor
Updated: 5/23/2025
LOWER CATTLE ON FEED
The USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) reported cattle on feed as of May 1, 2025, at 11.4 million head, which was a decline of -1.5% (178,000 head) from a year earlier. The average pre-report estimate expected a decline of -1.5% from the prior year with a range of -1.7% to -1.0%. Cattle marketings in April were just over 1.8 million head, a decrease of -2.5% (47,000 head) from a year earlier. April this year and last had 22 slaughter days.
COLD STORAGE
Cold storage was released by the USDA-NASS today containing totals for the month of April. Overall, red meat in cold storage was down -5.9% year over year to 893.6 million pounds, with poultry also decreasing -5.2% to 1.1 billion pounds. Within aggregate red meat, total beef in cold storage declined to 418.1 million pounds, a loss of -1.9% attributable to larger losses in volume out of boneless beef (-2.6% to 377 million pounds) offsetting lesser gains observed in beef cuts (+4.2% to 41.2 million pounds).
DAIRY MARKET UPDATE
The dairy sector continued to add a few more cows to the milk cow herd than was expected at the first of the year. USDA-NASS reported that the April milk cow tally was up 5,000 head from the prior month, which was up a revised 24,000 cows from February to March. The April milking herd was at 9.425 million cows, compared to 9.336 million head a year ago and 9.355 million head in December. Milk production during the first quarter of 2025 ran below a year ago by less than a half a percent as milk cow productivity fell short of expectations, but that trend has reversed in March and April, leading to a likely increase in milk production of +1% to +2% in the current quarter when compared to last year.
Livestock Monitor (pdf)