USDA cattle feed report: Cattle on Feed vs feed prices

There is no single USDA cattle feed report. The phrase usually means one of two things: the monthly Cattle on Feed report from USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), which counts the cattle in feedlots of 1,000 or more head and carries no prices, or the weekly Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) reports that price what those feedlots buy, led by the National Weekly Grain Co-Products Report for corn and distillers grains.

The Ration is built on the second group. The table sorts out which report answers which question.

What Cattle on Feed counts

NASS's Cattle on Feed survey counts cattle and calves being fed a ration of grain, silage, hay or protein supplements for the slaughter market. It covers about 2,000 known feeders with a capacity of 1,000 or more head in the 16 largest cattle-feeding states, and NASS says lots that size hold about 85 percent of all fed cattle in the US. The reference date is the first of the month, and the report normally comes out on the third Friday with three numbers that matter: the inventory on feed, the cattle placed in feedlots during the prior month and the fed cattle marketed out of them.

The Sep 18, 2026 report put 11.2 million head on feed on Sep 1, 2026, 1 percent more than a year earlier. Placements in August were 1.62 million head, 9 percent below August 2025 and the lowest for any August since the series began in 1996. Marketings were 1.52 million head, 3 percent lower and also the lowest for an August.

NASS describes what the counts are used for: placements help forecast marketings three to eight months out, and the inventory on feed correlates with how much feed grain is used. That is where the two kinds of report meet. Cattle on Feed says how many cattle are in the yards; it says nothing about what their feed costs.

What the AMS reports price

Feed prices come from four weekly AMS reports:

• The National Weekly Grain Co-Products Report opens with what ethanol plants paid for corn and processors paid for soybeans, per bushel: $4.53 and $12.72 in the Oct 22, 2026 edition, for the trading week of Oct 12 to 16. It then prices what the plants sell: dried and wet distillers grains by state, distillers corn oil and ethanol. The board's corn benchmark and wet distillers grains come from it.
• The National Grain and Oilseed Processor Feedstuff Report prices the processed feeds per ton by trade region: DDGS, corn gluten feed and meal, soybean meal and hulls, the cottonseed products and the other oilseed meals.
• The National Mill-Feeds and Miscellaneous Feedstuff Report covers wheat middlings and millrun, rice bran, almond hulls and the alfalfa products, and the National Animal By-Product Feedstuff Report the rendered proteins and feed greases.

The three feedstuffs reports dated Oct 16, 2026 cover the same Oct 12 to 16 trading week as that Grain Co-Products edition. The board files a week's quotes under its Monday, so all four appear on this site as the week of Oct 12, 2026. For the outlook side, USDA's Economic Research Service publishes a monthly Corn and Other Feed Grains Outlook on the supply and use of the feed grains. It is a market outlook, not a weekly price sheet.

Worked example: August 2026 in both reports

The Sep 18 Cattle on Feed report covers August placements and marketings, so it can be set beside the board's August prices.

1. Cattle on Feed. 1.62 million head were placed in August 2026, down 9 percent from 1.78 million a year earlier; 1.52 million were marketed, down 3 percent from 1.57 million; and 11.16 million were on feed on Sep 1, up 1 percent.
2. The AMS board, averaging its August weeks. Corn was $165 a ton against $135 in August 2025, up 22 percent. Soybean meal was $341 against $289, up 18 percent. DDGS was $171 against $149, up 15 percent.
3. From bushel to ton. The Grain Co-Products report quotes corn per bushel, and the board converts it at 56 pounds a bushel. In the Oct 22, 2026 edition corn was $4.53 a bushel: $4.53 ÷ 56 × 2,000 = $161.79 a ton. At the board's book values for corn (87.9 percent dry matter, 88 percent TDN) a ton carries 1,547 pounds of TDN, so energy from corn cost $161.79 ÷ 1,547 = about $0.105 a pound of TDN for the week of Oct 12.

Read together, the two reports describe the same month from two sides: fewer cattle went into feedlots in August 2026 than in any August since 1996, while the corn, soybean meal and DDGS feedlots buy cost 15 to 22 percent more than a year before. Neither report connects the two, and this guide does not either.

The latest USDA week

Corn was $152 per ton ($4.26 a bushel) as of Oct 26, 2026 (national corn benchmark, plant input cost, USDA), up 7% from $143 a year earlier. Soybean meal was $352 per ton as of Oct 26, 2026 (national median across 5 FOB plant regions, USDA), and DDGS $188 per ton as of Oct 26, 2026 (national median across 11 FOB plant regions, USDA), or 96% of soybean meal's cost per pound of protein.

The board above ranks every feed the four AMS reports price by what a pound of protein costs in it. How to read a USDA feedstuffs report walks through one report line column by column, and the methodology lists which report each price comes from. The Ration reports USDA's prices as published; it does not carry the Cattle on Feed counts, forecast either set of numbers or tell a reader what to feed.