Cash cheese prices slipped on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Thursday; barrels declined 4 cents and blocks lost 2. Class III futures were mostly a little lower.
Milk production in the United States in February totaled 16.2 billion pounds up 1.7 percent from February of 2014. The nation’s dairy herd increased 100,000 from a year ago to 9.31 million head and production per cow increased 9 pounds to average 1,736.
Milk production in the 23 major dairy states was 15.1 billion pounds on February up 1.7 percent from a year ago. There were 8.62 million cows in the 23 states up 106,000 from a year ago and production per cow increased 8 pounds to 1,757. Nineteen of the 23 states saw an increase in production compared to a year ago, Vermont and Virginia were unchanged while California and New Mexico production was lower.
Dairy cow slaughter totaled 242,000 in February, 33,000 less than in January and 5,000 more than February of last year. For the first two months of the year, 518,000 dairy cows have been slaughtered under federal inspection, 11,000 more than the first two months of 2014.
By: Bob Meyer
Source: Brownfield Ag News