At the end of February, there were 653.8 million pounds of pork in cold storage. That was up 5.7% from the month before, up 3.2% compared to a year ago, and the most frozen pork since the end of May. Given the expectation of record high pork prices this summer, putting extra pork in freezers may be a wise move.
The number of new cases of PED virus continues to climb. Each of the 8 weeks prior to mid March increased the number of farms with the disease by more than 250. There are now more than 5,000 hog farms with the PED virus.
Hog slaughter this week totaled 2.033 million head, down 0.4% from the week before and down 7.0% compared to the same week last year.
The average live weight of barrows and gilts in Iowa-Minnesota last week was a new record 283.9 pounds. That is up 0.9 pound from a week earlier, up 8.2 pounds from a year ago, and up 0.2 pound from the old record set the week ending on January 18, 2014. Year-to-date hog slaughter is down 4.0% while, because of heavier hog weights, pork production is down only 1.2%.
Hog futures ended the week with little change even though they were down the $3 limit on Tuesday and up the $3 limit on Thursday. The April lean hog futures contract settled at $125.57/cwt today, down 10 from the previous Friday. May hog futures ended the week at $125.20/cwt, down $1.07 from the week before. June hogs lost 75 cents this week to close at $129.57/cwt. The July contract ended the week at $126.20/cwt, down 40 cents for the week. August closed at $125.97/cwt.
Source: AGEBB