July 23, 2012

US H1 2012 cattle herd forecast down

In the aftermath of a drought in the Southern Plains last year, analysts forecast that USDA's semi-annual cattle inventory report on Friday (July 27) would show the herd in the US declined from a year ago.

They said the herd was expected to shrink further in the second half of this year due to another drought, this one the worst in 56 years and centred in the Midwest.

Following are analyst estimates for the semi-annual USDA US Cattle Inventory Report to be released at 2:00 p.m. CDT (1900 GMT) Friday.

The estimates are in million head as of July 1, and a percentage of a year ago.