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Commercial Hog Slaughter Rises Last Year
Canada has its first case of the PED virus. A farrow to finish operation in Ontario was confirmed with the disease on Wednesday. The U.S. has more than 2,000 farms with PED. The PED virus is likely to trim 2 percent or so off of 2014 hog slaughter.
The amount of pork in cold storage at the end of 2013, 557.13 million pounds, was up 2.0 percent from a month earlier and up 1.0 percent from a year earlier.
U.S. commercial hog slaughter in 2013 totaled 112,126,100 million head, the fourth highest ever. That was down 1,037,200 million head (0.9 percent) from the year before. Because of heavier slaughter weights, commercial pork production was down only 0.2 percent compared to 2012.
Friday morning’s pork cutout value based on mandatory price reporting was $86.53/cwt FOB plants, up 4 cents from the week before and up $1.83 from a year ago.
The national average negotiated carcass price for direct delivered hogs on the morning report today was $77.86/cwt, up $1.91 from last Friday, but down $5.46 from a year ago. There was no price quotes for the western corn belt or Iowa-Minnesota this morning. The eastern corn belt averaged $77.95/cwt. Peoria had a live price top this morning of $53/cwt. Zumbrota, MN topped at $52/cwt. The top price Friday for interior Missouri live hogs was $54.25, down 75 cents from the previous Friday. This morning's hog carcass price averaged 90.0 percent of the cutout value.
Hog slaughter this week totaled 2.222 million head, down 1.8 percent from the week before, but up 4.2 percent compared to the same week last year.
Despite a cold winter, the average live weight of barrows and gilts in Iowa-Minnesota last week was a record 283.7 pounds, up 1.1 pounds from a week earlier and up 8.8 pounds from a year ago. This weight series has been above year-ago every week since March 2013. Barrow and gilt dressed weight has been at least 6 pounds heavier than a year ago for the last 11 weeks.
The February lean hog futures contract settled at $86.37/cwt today, up 20 cents from the previous Friday. April hog futures ended the week at $94.02/cwt, up $2.12 from the week before. May hogs gained 95 cents to close at $100.55. The June contract ended the week at $102.35/cwt. July closed at $100.80/cwt.
March corn futures ended the week at $4.295 per bushel, up 5 cents from the week before. June corn settled at $4.36/bushel.
March soybean meal futures ended the week at $425.70 per ton, down $8.80 from the previous Friday.∆
DR. RON PLAIN AND DR. SCOTT BROWN: Agricultural Economists, University of Missouri
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