A livestock economist says beef cow slaughter numbers indicate expansion of the US cattle herd won’t happen anytime soon.

University of Missouri’s Scott Brown says the year-to-date beef cow slaughter is 4.95% of beginning inventory.

“Cow slaughter is not down enough that we’re actually building cow inventory. You have to get at below four percent of that beginning inventory before you talk about real increase in beef cow inventory.”

For the same period in 2022, the rate was 5.45 beginning cow inventory.

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