Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) live cattle and feeder cattle futures closed lower on Thursday as processing by beef companies fell sharply, reported Reuters.
Meatpackers slaughtered an estimated 90,000 cattle, down from 107,000 a week ago, the US Department of Agriculture said.
Slaughtering has declined this week as industry members reported an immigration crackdown has kept meatpacking workers away from beef plants in Dodge City and Liberal, Kansas. Shipments of cattle to plants have been delayed because of the lack of workers to process them, industry members said.
"Anything that causes a backup in processing is a concern in the industry," said Scarlett Madinger, spokesperson for the Kansas Livestock Association. "We don't want any kind of backup."
CME December live cattle fell 1.250 cents to end at 222.100 cents per pound. October feeder cattle slid 1.575 cents to close at 331.750 cents per pound.
In CME's lean hog market, most-active December futures declined 0.850 cent to 69.475 cents per pound.
After trading ended, the USDA reported that the total US hog inventory was 74.3 million head as of September 1, down 1.5% from a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Reuters had expected a decline of 0.8%.
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