The USDA March Hogs & Pigs Report turned out to be pretty much what analysts had predicted: All hogs and pigs were up 3% from a year ago; breeding herd inventory was up almost 2% from last year; and the market hog inventory was up 3% from last year. The December-February pig crop, at 32.3 million head, was up 4% from 2017.
Record highs were established for all hogs and pigs, at nearly 73 million, and for number of market hogs, at 66.708 million.
Producers continue to build the breeding herd based on new packer capacity, says John Nalivka, President of Sterling Marketing in Vale, OR. “At the same time, packer margins have weakened a little from a year ago, the opposite of what we saw in Jan. and Feb.,” he says.
In addition, pigs produced per litter increased again in this…
