Most statisticians are forecasting a drop in size in the nation's cowherd in 2008, due to several factors.
One certainly is high feed costs. Corn and other grains at record levels make it impractical to keep any more cattle than a rancher can winter on just his own forage. The competition for corn with the ethanol industry has driven prices through the roof, and with government subsidies of over 50 cents a gallon, ethanol manufacturers can afford to buy it and ranchers can't.
High fuel costs make all cattle industry inputs more expensive, and particularly transportation. Cattlemen will be shipping fewer cattle shorter distances to compensate, which mitigates in behalf of holding down herd size.
Weather, both drought and excessive moisture and storms, has forced cattlemen to cull cows due to shorter pastures. It makes it even less likely they will hold back heifers to breed, with higher costs and less feed. A certain number have to be held back just to keep numbers even, and more held back to expand herds.
Neither is likely to happen, analysts say, this year. With calf prices at profitable levels, it makes more sense to take the money and run, rather than not only hold on to heifers, but do so on a higher-cost basis.
In 2008, it just ain't gonna happen.
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