On today’s Cow-Calf corner, Paul Beck, Oklahoma State University State Beef Cattle Nutrition Specialist, discusses the effects of drought on cattle numbers.
The articles for this and upcoming weeks are based on the thoughts that I put together for a symposium at the American Society of Animal Science meeting held in Calgary “Increasing the Resilience of the Beef Cattle Feeder Supply”.
It seems like the climate cycles have turned against us. Figure 1 shows the NOAA extremes in Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) from 1910 to 2023. Since the early 2000’s droughts have become more frequent and more severe than any time since the 1950’s. In the era from the late 1960’s to the early 2000’s, we had been in a long-term wet cycle, one that appears to be abnormal compared to our historical climate since 1910. The environmental conditions from 1970 to 2000 is the only thing many of us ever knew. This 30-year span also corresponds to the evolution of our modern beef cattle production system. Leading to the question, would the production practices we developed from 1970 to 2000 be sustainable in the 1950’s and 60’s? If we are returning to that weather pattern, will they be sustainable in the future?
Along with the increasing severity and frequency of droughts, other weather-related events have become more common and more costly. Extremes in heat during the summer and winter storms in the winter, 1,000-year floods, out of control fires, and other disasters have become more frequent impacting human life and agricultural productivity.
Droughts impact cattle numbers and drive the timing of the expansions and contractions of the cattle cycle. Below the numbers of beef cows and heifers that have calved (black line) is super imposed on the drought duration (gray bars) in each year. Widespread drought in 2011 through 2013 resulted in a 2.5% decrease in beef cattle herd size, resulting in record high prices stemming from the low cattle numbers. This gave the impetus for a nearly 3.5% increase in the beef cattle herd by 2018 when conditions returned to normal. Then in 2021, a return of drought conditions, yet again resulted in a 2.5% decrease in the beef cattle herd through 2023.
The USDA estimates there is currently 17.1 million head one-time capacity in feedlots, so based on 1.9 turns per year in the feedlot (current average is 192 days on feed), 80% occupancy rates, normal heifer retention of 3.5 million head per year, normal imports of feeder calves from Mexico (1 million head) and Canada (150,000 head), and 77% weaning rate (based on 81.4% calving rate and 95% calf survival rate), we need 32.3 million beef cows to supply the feedlots each year. We almost reached that in 2019 (31.8 million beef cows) but the U.S. beef cow herd is currently at 28.2 million head. The shortage of feeder cattle will result in changes in production practices (longer days on feed, reduced weights of feeders entering the feedlot, etc) and increased bids for feeder cattle, but there are other implications of drought that we will cover next week.
