Russ Euken – Beef and Swine Field Specialist
Feedlot operations are numerous in Iowa compared to many states that have larger cattle on feed sales but fewer operations. Of course, this means in comparison, Iowa feedlots tend to be smaller. In 2022, 62.9%% of Iowa feedlots were less than 200 head of cattle sold per operation. The number of head sold from these operations accounted for 8.8% of the total sales. Operations with 200-1000 head in sales accounted for 26.6% of the total operations and 28.4% of the total head sold. Operations with over 1,000 head sold accounted for 10.5% of operations but had 62.7% of the total sales.
There is a large range in number of operations and sales of cattle fed for slaughter among individual Iowa counties. Most Iowa counties are similar, with the largest percent of operations in the smaller categories of less than 200 head sold, but the higher percent of cattle sold is from larger operations. The top Iowa counties in number of cattle on feed operations are Sioux, Delaware, and Dubuque which all have about 200 operations. These Iowa counties are among the top six nationally, while the next three, Winneshiek, Jackson, and Lyon, with approximately 120 operations, are also in the top ten nationally. There are 3,007 counties in the United States. Stearns county in Minnesota, Lancaster county in Pennsylvania, and Grant county in Wisconsin are the top three counties in number of cattle on feed operations with 299, 268, and 217 operations, respectively. The fewest number of operations in Iowa were in Fremont and Mills counties in southwest Iowa, Van Buren county in the southeast and Hamilton in the north central.
In sales for slaughter, Sioux county leads the state with 344,902 head sold. This ranks 13th nationally. Following in Iowa are Lyon and Dubuque counties with about 85728 and 76,107 head sold respectively. The next four in order are Delaware, Carroll, Plymouth, and Jackson ranging from 68,766 to 47,446 sold. Counties in Kansas, Texas, and Nebraska are in the top 5 national in sales.
Cattle on feed operations in Iowa are concentrated in the northwest, northeast and east central part of the state with a few counties in west central and southwest having larger numbers. The top five counties in sales in Iowa sold 35.5%, the top 10 sold 48.8% the top 15 counties sold 58.4% of the slaughter cattle in the state. Counties in the northwest and west central area of the state have slightly
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larger operations than the northeast area. There are larger feedlots scattered across the state, but most counties have predominantly smaller feedlots, with fewer than 200 head in size.
Iowa has experienced a decline in the number of cattle on feed operations and sales for slaughter over the past decade. Most of this decrease has been in smaller operations, with about a drop of 1,000 operations with less than 100 head sold and a drop of 900 operations with 100 to 500 head sold. There was a 70% increase in operations over 1,000 heads sold. The largest decrease in sales for slaughter was from operations in the 200-500 head sold category, with a slight increase in sales from operations with over 1,000 head in sales.
The last 10-year trend for individual counties has been mixed, but in general, Iowa counties have decreased in the number of operations and the number of cattle sold. Those counties with a larger number of operations and cattle sold have either gained slightly or decreased less than other counties.