The USDA is out now with its new quarterly hogs and pigs report.

“What this report is telling us is, you know, I don’t think there was any real big surprises.”

Not even a couple of the small ones. This from USDA livestock analyst Michael McConnell.

“What this report says, more or less, is that there are hogs available, but more or less, the market prepares to be fairly well in balance in terms of the number of hogs coming in, in the way that they’re being throughput for the next at least, the next couple weeks and months.”

Things are balanced so well that when you go through all the numbers, some up a bit, others down, you get a total hog and pig inventory for a September 1 of 76.5 million head, almost the exact same number as we had one year ago. But McConnell says there are some interesting market forces going on under the surface, some of which are putting pressure on prices.

“We continue to see the pigs per litter rate at a national level that’s still relatively high. We’ve been seeing that now from the past several reports going back a year ago now.”

USDA reports that during the summer quarter, average pigs saved per litter was 11.7. It was 11.6 in the summer of ’23.

“And so with a higher pigs per litter rate, there’s been a bit of an adjustment in terms of the number of sows needed for farrowing. You know, it does show that we have and have had more hog supplies overall from for much of the year, which maybe has been putting a little bit of downward pressure on hog price, particularly over the summer, when we typically get a seasonal bump in hog prices, as well as the wholesale pork prices. And that was a little bit muted this year.”

USDA says hogs in August averaged $67.80 per hundredweight. That’s almost $6 below August of 2023.