The United States inventory of all hogs and pigs on June 1, 2023, is only slightly higher than last year, according to the latest Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report published Thursday by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. Total inventory came in at 72.394 million head, up about 80,000 from June 2022, but down 1% from the previous quarter.
"All hogs and pigs, 72.4 million head, was pretty much in line with what we saw last year, but also kind of following the decline that we've seen for the last few years here," said Tyler Cozzens, an agricultural economist with the Livestock Marketing Information Center. "So not really seeing much improvement there, or much further decline, as we sit right now. It's about the lowest we've seen here in the last four to five years, but not too significant of a decline there."
Of the 72.4 million hogs and pigs, 6.15 million head were kept for breeding. Breeding inventory was down 0.4% from last year, but up 1% from the previous quarter.
Market hog inventory came in at 66.2 million head, up 0.2% from last year, but down 1% from March 2023.
The March-May 2023 pig crop, at 32.9 million head, was up 1% from 2022. Sows farrowing during this period totaled 2.90 million head, down 2% from 2022. The sows farrowed during this quarter represented 48% of the breeding herd.
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