U.S. cattle and calves on feed for the slaughter market in feedlots with capacity of 1,000 or more head totaled 12.04 million head on Dec. 1, virtually equal to the Nov. 1 total (11.97 million) and the Dec. 1, 2019, inventory of 12.03 million, the USDA reported last week.

In Iowa, the Dec. 1 inventory was 610,000 head, down 2% from the Nov. 1 census and below year-ago levels by 12%. At this time in 2019, the Iowa herd totaled 690,000...