Montana · Cattle Flow & Destinations · Updated October 21, 2026

Where Montana Cattle Go

Where Montana cattle are sold to, by state — counted from three years of Montana Department of Livestock brand-inspection records, not estimated.

~1.7MHead brand-inspected per year

~38–39%Bought by Montana buyers

~61–62%Bought by out-of-state buyers

23%Nebraska’s share of out-of-state head, 2024

Where Montana cattle went, 2022–2024

Head of cattle sold to out-of-state buyers, by the buyer’s state. The percentage is that state’s share of all cattle that left Montana that year. Sorted by 2024.

Buyer’s state	2022	2023	2024
1. Nebraska	203,29619.7%	212,35621.0%	245,74823.2%
2. South Dakota	189,52118.3%	183,94118.2%	181,57217.1%
3. Wyoming	75,5277.3%	73,1057.2%	93,0258.8%
4. Iowa	88,8878.6%	76,2307.5%	85,0188.0%
5. Idaho	64,7006.3%	66,5496.6%	72,1846.8%
6. Canada (Alberta)*	71,8626.9%	41,3154.1%	67,9956.4%
7. Washington	71,7736.9%	84,6558.4%	67,4896.4%
8. North Dakota	47,0394.5%	55,2985.5%	61,9305.8%
9. Minnesota	62,3286.0%	65,6686.5%	58,0405.5%
10. Kansas	36,6123.5%	—not in top 11	42,7894.0%
11. Colorado	62,0246.0%	65,5036.5%	40,2993.8%
All out-of-state buyers	1,034,425	1,012,449	1,058,824
For comparison: stayed with Montana buyers	637,751	652,424	650,849

* 2022 records list “Canada” without naming a province; 2023 and 2024 records name Alberta. Texas did not appear among the top destinations in any of the three years. Source: Montana Department of Livestock brand-inspection records (BE-10), calendar years 2022–2024, released to Honest Cattle under public-records requests. County-by-county detail: Montana Brand Inspection Data.

What the records show

1. The Corn Belt is Montana’s biggest market, every year.Buyers in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Kansas together took about 35% of all cattle inspected in Montana in each of the three years — well over half of what left the state. Nebraska and South Dakota held first and second place all three years.

2. Where a county ships depends on where it sits.Southeastern counties ship mostly east: Carter and Powder River counties sent about 84–89% of their cattle out of state each year, mostly to South Dakota. In Beaverhead County, in the southwest, Idaho buyers took the most out-of-state cattle all three years. In 2024, 53,107 head left Judith Basin County for Alberta.

3. Colorado is a real market, but a small one.Colorado buyers took 40,000–66,000 head a year, roughly 4% to 6.5% of cattle leaving Montana, and the 2024 number was the lowest of the three years. That is far below the 30–40% share this page previously estimated.

4. Many cattle never leave Montana.Close to 4 in 10 head inspected each year were bought by another Montana buyer — backgrounders, order buyers, other ranches and auction resales within the state.

5. The pattern is steady.The same ten or so states show up every year in nearly the same order. This is a long-standing trading relationship, not a one-year swing.

How to read these numbers. The destination is the buyer’s address of record, not necessarily the feedlot where the animal is finished. A Nebraska or South Dakota order buyer may resell cattle into another state, so some cattle counted as Nebraska or South Dakota may finish elsewhere. Brand inspections also count sales and movements, not individual animals: one steer sold in Montana and then shipped out of state can be counted twice. Even so, the gap between the records and the older industry estimates is too large for these caveats to explain.

Montana cattle marketing flow (estimate)

A rough picture of what happens to Montana’s calf crop of roughly 1.25 million head a year. These are estimates, not records.

Stage	Share	Head	Detail
1. Retained for breeding	15–18%	~190,000–225,000	Replacement heifers kept to rebuild cow herds; some bull calves retained as breeding stock
2. Backgrounded in Montana, then shipped	15–20%	~190,000–250,000	Weaned in fall, backgrounded through winter, sold as yearlings (600–800 lbs) in spring
3. Sold as calves	60–65%	~750,000–813,000	Weaned calves (400–600 lbs) sold in fall to feedlots, backgrounders or order buyers, in Montana or out of state

Why USDA data can’t answer this

Why Montana never shows up by name in the federal feedlot data.

The monthly USDA NASS Cattle on Feed report individually tracks only 11 major feeding states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Washington. Montana’s feedlot placements are folded into an “Other States” category because Montana has relatively few large commercial feedlots (1,000+ head capacity). The report also does not say where any state’s cattle came from. Montana brand-inspection records are the only full count of where Montana cattle are sold.

The national feeding system, for context

The largest U.S. cattle-feeding states by on-feed inventory. A big feeding state is not automatically a big buyer of Montana cattle — compare Texas here with the records above.

Feeding state	Feedlot inventory (Jan 1, 2026)	Change vs. 2025	% of US total
Texas	2.6 million head	−9%	23%
Nebraska	2.4 million head	+2%	21%
Kansas	2.3 million head	0%	20%
Colorado	1.0 million head	−15%	9%
Iowa	0.6 million head	+5%	5%
Other states	2.6 million head	Various	23%
US total	11.5 million head	−3%	100%

Source: USDA NASS Cattle on Feed Report, January 24, 2026.

Brand-inspection data by county, 2022–2024 →

Data sources & methodology

Destination states: Montana Department of Livestock brand-inspection (BE-10) records for calendar years 2022, 2023 and 2024, released to Honest Cattle under public-records requests. Each year’s records from the Department’s legacy and current systems were combined; horse and bison records are excluded. Counts are head of cattle. Percentages in the destination table are each state’s share of head bought by out-of-state buyers that year. (The Montana Brand Inspection Data page shows the same head counts as a share of all head inspected, Montana included, so its percentages are smaller.)

Montana cattle flow estimates: Based on Montana beef cow inventory (USDA NASS), a typical calf crop rate, replacement rates of 15–18%, and industry knowledge of Montana cattle marketing. These are estimates, not records.

Feedlot inventory: USDA NASS Cattle on Feed, January 2026.

Limitations:

Destination is the buyer’s address of record, not necessarily the final feedlot
Brand inspections count sales and movements; an animal sold twice can appear twice
A small number of 2024 records (under half a percent) carry no head count or no destination state
2025 records have been requested and are not yet included

Correction, October 21, 2026: An earlier version of this page estimated, from industry surveys and freight-rate analysis, that Colorado took 30–40% of Montana feeder cattle, followed by Nebraska, Kansas and Texas. Brand-inspection records for 2022–2024 do not support that ranking, and the destination table now uses those records.

Sources: Montana Department of Livestock, Brands Enforcement Division (BE-10 records, 2022–2024) · USDA NASS Cattle on Feed Reports (January 2026) · USDA NASS Montana Cattle Inventory. Related: Montana Brand Inspection Data · Montana Weekly Auction Results · Montana Cattle Auction Trends. By Dirk Adams, with the assistance of AI; figures are informational, not an offer or appraisal.

Where Montana Cattle Go · Honest Cattle