inventories of cattle in the us have largely grown versus this time last year  defying the expectations of analysts surveyed by the wall street journal in its latest monthly cattle on feed report the usda said that 121 million head of cattle were on feed through the month ended april 1 which is up 2 from the same timeframe last year the move in supply falls outside of estimates from surveyed analysts who had forecast the total to be 04 higher than the same time last year cattle newly placed on feedlots in february were well above analyst estimates with the figure totaling 199 million head virtually unchanged from the same time last year analysts were expecting a drop of nearly 8 in trading friday mostactive live cattle futures on the chicago mercantile exchange closed down 11 to 138425 per pound meanwhile lean hog futures closed up 14 to 118775 per pound