Making beef great again: How to rebuild cow herd

The U.S. Department of Agriculture gives us a snapshot of America’s cattle inventory every January. If you want to rebuild the herd, go where the cows are.

The Jan. 1, 2026, numbers show that Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri account for more than 28% of the nation’s beef cow herd.

Those three states are traditionally the top mama-cow states in the nation, with Texas coming in first and Oklahoma and Missouri flipping between second and third every few years.

In the latest report, Texas had about 4.045 million beef cows, Oklahoma had nearly 1.966 million and Missouri had about 1.806 million.

That’s roughly 7.8 million beef cows in three states — more than one out of every four beef cows in America.

The rest of the top 10 are: Nebraska, with 1.56 million beef cows; South Dakota, 1.45 million; Montana, 1.232 million; Kansas, 1.145 million; North Dakota, 891,000; Florida, 872,000; and Kentucky, 862,000.

Together, those 10 states account for nearly 15.8 million mama cows — about 57% of the nation’s 27.6 million beef cows. In other words, more than half of America’s beef cow herd is concentrated in just 10 states.

There’s recently been a lot of talk coming out of Washington about rebuilding the nation’s cattle herd.

On Sept. 4, President Donald Trump, with ranchers in the Oval Office, signed executive orders addressing issues including meat processing, country-of-origin labeling and predator management.

If the goal is really to rebuild the American cow herd, I would think you’d go where the beef cows are.

Talk to those with small- and medium-sized cow herds who have room — and, more importantly, the desire — to expand. Talk to the people who actually have to make the decision to rebuild.

We all know the beef business is bigger than the cow in the pasture. Some calves leave the herd as soon as they are weaned and go to a stocker or backgrounder who grows weaned calves on grass, forage, wheat or in a drylot.

Some go on to a feedlot where they are finished on higher-energy rations. Some cow-calf owners grow the calves until they are finished and ready to be processed.

Every link in that chain matters, and when one gets stressed, the whole beef industry feels it. But if we’re talking about rebuilding the cow herd, we need to start with the mama cow.

The cow-calf producer decides whether to keep or sell that heifer, whether to cull a cow or breed her again, whether there is enough grass and hay to expand and whether the economics make sense to put more cows on the place.

Those decisions aren’t made in Washington. They’re made in pastures, barns, the banker’s office and in kitchen table conversations.

And right now cattle producers have plenty on their minds — beef imports, market transparency, processing capacity, feed costs, fuel costs, weather and the cost of keeping a cow around long enough to produce that next calf.

The U.S. beef herd is at a 75-year low. USDA counted 27.6 million beef cows on Jan. 1, 2026, down 1% from the previous year.

Rebuilding the herd matters. But rebuilding doesn’t happen because somebody says, “We need more cows.”

It happens when a cattle producer decides, “I’m going to keep this heifer.”

I’m not suggesting we ignore the cow-calf producers in other states. But if you really want to rebuild America’s cow herd, go where the cows are and listen to the people who own them.