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AgridianDairy KB

Cull cow value

Definition

Section titled “Definition”

Cull cow value is what a dairy cow leaving the herd for slaughter is worth. It is the salvage value that offsets part of the cost of replacing her, so it feeds into replacement cost, culling decisions and herd valuation.

Three price levels exist, and they are not interchangeable:

  1. Wholesale (cutout): the cow boxed beef cutout (for the lower-grade cows that make up most dairy culls, the cutter cow cutout) is USDA AMS’s estimate of the wholesale value of the boxed beef from a cow carcass, in $/cwt of carcass weight. It is a packer-side value.
  2. Dressed (carcass) price: what a packer pays per cwt of hot carcass weight, when cows are sold “in the beef” or on a grid.
  3. Live price: what the farm receives per cwt of live weight at an auction barn or direct to a buyer. This is the farm-gate price.

USDA AMS auction reports grade slaughter cows mainly by expected carcass lean yield, with dressing (low, average, high) as a modifier. The bands below are from the AMS Market News cattle terms (as of November 2026):

Class Expected lean % Typical 12th-rib fat Typical dairy culls
Breaker 75–80% over 0.35 in Fleshier cows
Boner 80–85% about 0.15–0.35 in Many well-conditioned dairy culls
Lean 85% and above under 0.15 in Most thin Holstein culls

Older reports and some state reports used other bands (for example, Lean as 85–90%), so check the definitions printed on the report you’re using.

Dairy cull beef goes largely into lean trimmings for ground beef, so cull value tracks the lean (90s) trim market and imported lean beef prices more than steer prices.

Formula

Section titled “Formula”

Plain text:

dressing % = hot carcass weight (lb) / live weight (lb) × 100
live value ($/head) = live weight (lb) / 100 × live price ($/cwt)
dressed value ($/head) = hot carcass weight (lb) / 100 × dressed price ($/cwt)
live-equivalent price ($/cwt live) ≈ dressed price ($/cwt carcass) × dressing % / 100

LaTeX:

D = \frac{W_{\text{HCW}}}{W_{\text{live}}} \times 100
\qquad
V_{\text{live}} = \frac{W_{\text{live}}}{100} \, P_{\text{live}}
\qquad
P_{\text{live}} \approx P_{\text{dressed}} \times \frac{D}{100}

Net farm value subtracts commission, yardage, trucking, checkoff and any condemnation or shrink:

net value ($/head) = live value − selling costs − trucking

How to pull it in DC305

Section titled “How to pull it in DC305”

DC305 doesn’t hold beef market prices. Get them from:

  • USDA AMS Livestock, Poultry and Grain Market News: cow boxed beef cutout (cutter and breaker), regional and national slaughter cow auction summaries (live $/cwt by class and dressing), and direct slaughter cow reports (dressed $/cwt).
  • USDA AMS / NASS slaughter data: weekly federally inspected slaughter (with a dairy cow line) and the monthly NASS Livestock Slaughter report.
  • The farm’s own sale sheets: live weight, class and price per head are the only source of the herd’s actual realized value.

What DC305 contributes is the count and profile of culls: how many cows left, when, at what lactation and DIM, and for what reason.

EVENTS\D SOLD ID LACT DIM FOR LACT>0     SOLD events, with remark (reason)
EVENTS\D DIED ID LACT DIM FOR LACT>0     DIED events, with remark (cause)
LIST\D ID LACT DIM SELDT DIEDT FOR LACT>0     cows that left, with sold date (SELDT) and died date (DIEDT)

EVENTS lists live animals only by default, so removed cows need \D (animals that have left the herd) or \B; animals already moved to the archive file need \L. \S prompts for the date window. Sold and died event names, the remark codes used for cull reasons (and for beef vs dairy sale), and whether weight or sale price is recorded at all vary by herd. Check the herd’s private dc305-vocab mapping before building the filter.

Multiply the count of beef-sold culls by a realized $/head from the sale sheets, not by a cutout value, to estimate cull revenue.

Typical range

Section titled “Typical range”

Herd context: US Holstein cull cows, freestall or dry-lot, sold through auction or direct to packer.

Measure Approximate range
Live weight, Holstein cull ~1,300–1,600 lb
Dressing %, Holstein cull ~45–52% (thin cows lower)
Live price, Lean/Boner class ~$60–$100/cwt in 2015–2022; record highs above $140/cwt in 2025
  • Seasonality: cull cow prices are usually lowest in fall (October–December), when beef herds cull heavily after weaning, and highest in spring and early summer, when ground beef demand is strong and supply is lighter.
  • Cycle: cull value is high when the beef herd is rebuilding (fewer beef cows culled), low when beef herds liquidate.

Common mistakes

Section titled “Common mistakes”
  • Using the cutout as a farm price. The cutter cow cutout is a wholesale value per cwt of carcass, before packer margin and processing. It runs well above the live price; it is a market direction indicator, not farm gate.
  • Mixing live and dressed bases. A dressed price must be multiplied by dressing % to compare with a live price.
  • Using an average class price for every cull. Thin, lame or lower-dressing cows sell at the bottom of the range or below it; a herd’s realized average depends on cull condition.
  • Forgetting selling costs and shrink (commission, yardage, trucking, weight loss in transit).
  • Ignoring condemnations and drug residues. Cows with residue violations or that die or are condemned return nothing.
  • Using sale value in cull-rate math. Cull rate counts animals; value is a separate calculation on the same events.
Section titled “Related”