Cattle and calves on feed for slaughter market in United States’ feedlots with a capacity of 1,000 or more head totaled 10.6 million head on May 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in its report last week. The inventory was 1 percent above May 1, 2014.

There were 660,000 head of cattle on feed in Iowa feedlots with a capacity of 1,000 or more on May 1, the report said. This was down 1 percent from last month and unchanged from May 1, 2014.

Placements in U.S. feedlots during April totaled 1.55 million, 5 percent below 2014. On average, analysts polled by Urner Barry were expecting placements to come in 2.4 percent...