Dairy Week In Review

The USDA Livestock slaughter report indicated dairy cow slaughter in the US in September was up 3.3 percent from a year ago in August, with 255,700 head sent to auction during the month. On a daily basis, September’s dairy cow slaughter rate was down 0.9 percent from August. Year to date, 2.4166 million head of dairy cows were sent to slaughter, up 3.5 percent from year-ago levels. According to Daily Dairy Report, this year’s weekly slaughter volumes have met or exceeded the highest totals on record for 16 out of the 41 weeks reported so far. If this trend continues, the cull rate for the nation’s dairy herd is expected to be 34 percent in 2019, which would be the highest ever. Read More