# Breeders in the east, finishers in the west

**Maldonado is the most breeding-heavy department: 71.7% of its beef herd is breeding cows and calves. Soriano leans hardest to finishing: 29.8% steers and fattening cows. The east breeds; the west finishes.**

## Charts

![Stacked bars per department: eastern departments (Maldonado, Treinta y Tres, Rocha) have the largest breeding share; Soriano and Río Negro the largest share of steers.](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/charts/composition.png)

*Beef herd composition by department, 2025.* [Interactive](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/index.html) · [Vega-Lite spec](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/charts/composition.vl.json)

![Map: the finishing ratio is highest in the littoral west (Soriano, Río Negro) and lowest in Maldonado.](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/charts/finishing-map.png)

*Steers and fattening cows per breeding animal, 2025.* [Interactive](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/index.html) · [Vega-Lite spec](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/charts/finishing-map.vl.json)

## How we know

The notebook ran **7 cross-checks**, every one passed; the build refuses to publish a notebook whose numbers disagree with the source. A sample:

| check | got | expected | rule |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| every beef category maps to a group | 0 | 0 | exactly |
| 2025 beef cattle by department × category: cube = CSV (largest difference) | 0 | 0 | exactly |
| 2025 beef categories sum to the beef total in datosanimales | 11,583,321 | 11,583,321 | exactly |
| derived rows cover every department × category | 304 | 304 | exactly |
| category_share_of_bovine (derived, 6 dp) = our shares on its denominator (largest gap) | 5e-07 | 0 | within ±5e-07 |
| the most breeding-heavy department is in the east | True | True | exactly |

Data: MGAP/SNIG DICOSE sworn declarations 2024 and 2025 (graph `uruguay-cows`), via SPARQL and MCP on the demo's own endpoint.

## The notebook

- Read it: [https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/index.html](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/index.html)
- Download: [herd-structure.ipynb](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/herd-structure.ipynb) (also in this workspace: file [`ipynb-herd-structure`](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/herd-structure.ipynb) in *Notebook files*)
- For agents: [index.md](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/index.md)

Reading path: previous: [*Dairy country*](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/notebook-dairy-country/index.md); next: [*How hard the land is stocked*](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/notebook-stocking-intensity/index.md). The whole path: [`reading-path`](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/reading-path/index.md).

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 "url": "https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/notebooks/herd-structure/index.html",
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## Connected (the graph's wires)

- Previous in the reading path: [Dairy country](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/notebook-dairy-country/index.md)
- Next in the reading path: [How hard the land is stocked](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/notebook-stocking-intensity/index.md)
- Related: [Maldonado](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/department-maldonado/index.md), [Soriano](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/department-soriano/index.md)

---

This document is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), credit "cow-tools, Sophia Labs"; the data it describes keeps its own licence (Uruguay's open-data licence).

The cow-tools guide, Notebooks: https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/notebook-herd-structure/ (this page for people) · the whole guide: https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/index.md · in Sophia: the graph `cow-tools-guide`, document `notebook-herd-structure` (MCP `read_document` at https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/mcp). CC BY 4.0, credit "cow-tools, Sophia Labs".