SASKATOON (staff)- Canada’s cow herd has grown for the eighth year in a row, topping 12 million head, says Statistics Canada in its biannual inventory report.
The number of cattle and calves in the country as of Jan. 1 stood at 12.03 million head, compared to 11.79 million the year before.
True to the recent trend, all of that growth is happening in the beef cattle sector. There are nearly four million head of beef cows in the country, five percent from a year ago.
“Producers are still holding back females. They’re still in an expansion phase,” says Ron Gietz, livestock market analyst with Alberta Agriculture.
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Dairy cattle make up just 10 percent of the cattle in Canada, compared to nearly 30 percent 12 years ago. However, the number of milk cows and dairy heifers seems to have stabilized in 1993, the first time in a while that the numbers haven’t gone down, Gietz said.
Statistics Canada counted 1.26 million milk cows on Jan. 1 and 556,000 head of dairy heifers.
Dairy herd varies with region
The Western Canadian dairy herd dropped slightly, by 2,000 cows, while the Eastern Canadian herd grew a bit.
On the beef side, cattle producers haven’t stopped retaining females in order to build their herds. The beef cow herd stands at 3.99 million head, compared to 3.81 million on Jan. 1, 1993.
Heifers kept for replacements, at 269,000, are up marginally for the year but the number of breeding heifers jumped by 6.3 percent to 692,000.
The number of heifers sent for slaughter also dropped, by 6.1 percent nationwide (including an 18 percent drop in Ontario).
Alberta top producer
In terms of size, Alberta has the most cattle of any province at 4.5 million head, followed by Saskatchewan at 2.1 million, Ontario at 2.05 million and Quebec at 1.38 million.
Alberta’s beef cow herd is the largest in the country at 1.7 million head, followed by Saskatchewan at 932,000 and Manitoba at 445,000 head. British Columbia’s beef cow herd is 246,000 head.
Western hog producers appear to be headed into an expansion phase as well, Gietz said. Statistics Canada said the Western Canadian inventory is up by 3.5 percent to 4.5 million head.
Statistics Canada attributed the increase to ample supplies and low prices for barley.
Gietz said he expects increased production in next quarter’s hog results, as a check against the higher inventories. He said that will signal whether there is a clear expansion trend in hogs.
Canada’s sheep and lamb flock also grew in 1993. The government’s count puts the flock at 691,500 head, the biggest in 30 years.
Growth is fastest in Western Canada, where inventories were up by nearly six percent.
