U.S. Dairy Cow Slaughter Update – Mar ’20
Executive Summary
U.S. dairy cow slaughter figures provided by the USDA were recently updated with values spanning through Feb ’20. Highlights from the updated report include:
- U.S. dairy cow slaughter rates declined on a YOY basis for the fifth time in the past seven months during Feb ’20, finishing down 6.7% when normalizing for slaughter days. The YOY decline in dairy cow slaughter rates was the largest experienced throughout the past five years on a percentage basis.
- Month-over-month declines in dairy cow slaughter rates were led by Standard Federal Region 9 (Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada).
- YOY declines in dairy cow slaughter rates were led by Standard Federal Region 5 (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin).