Stats Canada Cattle numbers

[Manfarmer20]

How does stats Canada get its cow numbers. Many have gone out of business around here and broke up pastures. I would say 75% by cow numbers are gone!

[woodland]

In our county there’s probably 2/3 of the cows compared to pre-bse. A lot of guys under 100 cows (mostly part time farmers) got out completely and some larger mixed operations went to straight grain. The average herd size is much bigger here now. Lots of poor ground (hills, swamp, bush, etc.....) which is now cropped or left idle. A good chunk of our place is cow ground and I can’t afford to let it sit so we got bigger too.

What’s more beautiful/relaxing than moving a herd to fresh grass that’s rubbing on the cows bellies and tall enough to hide the calves in after feeding them all winter?



Last pairs hauled out June last year. The roan is my wife’s old 4-h project. My in laws called it part of the dowry😉

[Blaithin]

Which numbers, the number of farmers with cattle or the Canadian cattle herd size?

There’s some big players out there. Douglas Lake in BC has a cow herd of 10,000 head, Soderglen has to be pushing 4,000, I know a couple more low key farmers that aren’t into seed stock so heavily that are 3,000+ cows and have heard of a number of big guys out in Sask as well as down into southern AB. Some background more than run cow/calf though. Just because you don’t think there’s lots of cattle in a specific area doesn’t mean other area don’t make up for it. Handhills have become popular for bigger operations to pasture their cattle in, as are the special areas and up near Winfield is also very common.

[grassfarmer]

There has been quite a bit of cow movement as well as herd consolidation since 2001. The tables here show the numbers by county and make interesting reading.

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/anim14733

[15444]

And you have guys like me that tell Stats Can to go **** itself and they don't know that my numbers have doubled in the last 6 years.

In Ontario, numbers have collapsed where it is no longer economical in terms of land prices to raise cattle. Numbers have remained steady and increased where it still makes sense.

[smcgrath76]

While I am sure that the numbers are not 100% accurate I bet they are pretty close. The trend from GF's numbers for our county are 100% on target with the cowherd dropping precipitously over the last decade +.
The harvest numbers provide a pretty accurate indication as well, since the ratio of heifers to steers on the kill floor and cow kill numbers pretty accurately reflect overall inventory.