Even as total beef cow numbers declined, Canada’s total cattle inventory increased for the first time in four years on July 1, as Statistics Canada reported 12.285 million head, an increase of 0.2% from July 1, 2020.
Western Canadian ranchers have struggled with drought this year, and the overall herd increase was due to an 0.8% increase to 3 million head in the eastern provinces. Inventories in western provinces declined 0.1% to 9.3 million head. The largest share of Canadian cattle is found in Alberta with 39.6% of the total, followed by Saskatchewan 21.9% and Ontario 13.1%.
Coupled with the reported decline in America’s cattle herd of 2% to 100.9 million head by USDA on July 1, smaller supplies from the two countries should be expected in the coming years.
The Canadian beef cow herd reported a decline of 1.7% to 3.6 million head. In the U.S. the July 1 decline was 2% to 31.4 million head.
The U.S. beef cow herd has now declined by nearly 1 million head or 3% since July 1, 2018. The Canadian beef cow herd has declined 6% since 2017.
Like American producers, Canadian cattlemen are optimistic for higher cattle prices in 2022 and 2023. Much of that optimism hinges on western Canadian ranchers seeing improvements in pasture and range conditions. Canadian ranchers said they expect to retain more heifers with the latest survey finding 655,000 replacement heifers, or 24,000 more and the first year-over-year increase since 2017.
