Nebraska Beef Cow Breeding Herd as Capital Stock

Throughout her lifetime, the capital stock value of a cow first rises as the size/quality of calves increase, then declines because there are fewer calves expected over her remaining lifetime. The value later in life begins to rise in anticipation of culling value. We estimate the age distribution of the Nebraska cow herd every year, then we estimate the capital value of each cohort. Adding these values across ages and adjusting to 2015 prices, we obtain the series of capital values, measured in terms of 2015 dollars. In addition, we calculate the value of the annual flow of services provided by the cow herd. Here we can see in dollar terms, the annual net value to the farm sector contributed by that stock of Nebraska beef cows, currently running well over half a billion dollars per year.