On Thursday afternoon, Sept. 25, USDA will publish the results of their latest quarterly hog inventory survey. Hog profits have been strong this year and I am expecting modest growth in the swine herd. I expect the September market hog inventory to be up 0.6% from last year.
Calculations by economists at Iowa State University estimate the typical Iowa farrow-to-finish operation earned a profit of $52.58 for each hog marketed in August. August was the 17th consecutive profitable month. August profits were the highest since June 2021. During the first 8 months of 2025 hog profits averaged $27.11 per head marketed.
I’m predicting that USDA will tell us that summer (June-August) farrowings were down 0.4%. I’m predicting fall farrowings intentions to be up 0.7% and winter (December-February) intentions will be up 1.0%. If pigs per litter are up as I expect, then the pig crop in the second half of 2025 should be up 1.4%. My calculations put fall hog slaughter at 100.2% of a year ago with winter slaughter at 100.9% and spring hog slaughter up 1.6% compared to March-May 2025.
Recent hog slaughter has lower than implied by the June market hog inventory. U.S. hog slaughter over the last 16 weeks (since the beginning of June) has been down 2.3% year-over-year. The heavy weight market hog inventory in the June Hogs and Pigs Report implied slaughter during this period would be up 0.1% from a year ago. The difference is larger than usual. The June Hogs and Pigs Report implies fall slaughter will be up a bit less than 1%.