A good week for hog prices

Apr 28, 2025

Last week was a good one for hog prices. On Friday morning the national average negotiated price for market hogs was $91.74/cwt. That was $10.23 higher than a week earlier. The higher price appears to have been driven by some packers who needed additional hogs to complete their weekly slaughter plans.

U.S. hog slaughter over the last eight weeks (since the beginning of March) has been up 0.15%. The heavy weight market hog inventory in the March Hogs and Pigs report implied slaughter in this period would be up 0.17%. The difference is zilch and USDA’s March market hog inventory numbers are looking very good.

If summer marketings reflect the lightweight March market hog inventory, then May-August hog slaughter is expected to be down 0.4% year-over-year.

After taking a big jump in 2022 and 2023, inflation has slowed dramatically. The year-over-year increase in the consumer price index in March was 2.39%. That is the smallest annual increase since February 2021. Lower inflation should mean slower increases in cost of production for both farmers and packers.

The average retail price of pork during March was $4.951 per pound. That was 11.3 cents higher than the month before and 15.8 cents higher than a year ago. March pork prices were the highest since September 2024.

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Video: 2026 T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science - Dan Weary

T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science: "Using science to assess and improve the welfare of dairy cattle"

Dan Weary is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dan did his BSc and MSc at McGill and Doctorate at Oxford before co-founding UBC’s Animal Welfare Program where he now co-directs this active research group. His research focuses on understanding the perspectives of animals and applying these insights to develop methods of assessing animal welfare and improving the lives of animals. His work has helped drive changes in practices (including the adoption of higher milk rations for calves and pain management for disbudding) and housing methods (including the adoption of social housing for pre-weaned calves). He also studies cow comfort and lameness, social interactions among cows, and interactions between cows, human handlers and technologies like automated millking systems that are increasingly used on farms. His presentation will outline key questions in cattle welfare, highlight recent UBC research addressing them, and showcase innovative methods for improving the lives of cattle and their caretakers.