Last week’s F.I. cattle slaughter was revised up by the USDA yesterday to 596k head. That is the largest Thanksgiving week slaughter since 2006 and the sixth largest Thanksgiving week slaughter going all the way back to 1980.

Labor is showing up to work. Plants are running the best in years looking at hourly and daily throughput. Saturday is no longer as critical to move through current fed cattle supplies nor the tighter fed cattle numbers coming in 2023 and 2024.

No wonder the boxed beef cutout value is under pressure since the industry is churning our record beef production. Not only are slaughter levels high, (fed slaughter is running about 77% of daily throughput) but carcasses are record heavy. Last week USDA reported steer carcasses, for the week ended November 12, were 931 pounds, a new high for 2022 and tied for the highest in history, etched in October 2020.

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'The Beef' is published by Consolidated Beef Producers