U.S. dairy farmers culled 58,000 cows during the January 12 to 18, 2025, time window. While that isn’t newsworthy or record breaking, just one year ago, dairy farmers culled 51,100 head of dairy cows during the third week of January. When comparing those two moments in time, the collective U.S. dairy industry sent 6,900 more cows to slaughter during the third week of January 2025.

Those 6,900 additional cull cows aren’t headline making by themselves. What is top of fold for a newspaper is the fact that dairy farmers broke a 73-week streak in which they sent fewer cows to slaughter when comparing culling activity to the same week one year ago.

That 73-week steak began the final week of August 2023 and continued for the remaining 19 weeks that year. Then, in 2024, the pullback on culling continued throughout all 52 weeks when accounting for the shift in the Thanksgiving holiday. The first two weeks of the new year started out much of same with dairy cow culling being down 5,000 head. Afterward came the third week of January, and the 6,900 additional dairy cows sent to slaughter completely reversed the trendline and sent the cull data 1,900 cows higher compared to the first three weeks in 2024.

Monumental pullback

When looking at those 73 weeks, U.S. dairy farmers sent 506,000 fewer head to slaughter from the final week of August 2023 through the second week of January 2025. The 52 weeks in 2024 accounted for 367,400 of the pullbacks, while the final 19 weeks of 2023 notched 136,700 head of the reduction in culling activity.

Do the higher culling totals from the January 12 to January 18, 2025, week have staying power?

Time will tell. However, dairy replacement inventories remain historically tight and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) continues to wreak havoc out West. To that end, culling activity in that region was almost flat when compared to the same time last year during the third week of January.

However, dairy cow slaughter was the most robust in the Northeast and Midwest, where culls were up nearly 30% in both regions as dairy farmers capitalized on high beef prices. Given the increasing demand for milk with new processing assets coming online in Eastern markets, there could eventually be another pullback on culling on the horizon.