Canada has its first case of the PED virus. A farrow to finish operation in Ontario was confirmed with the disease on Wednesday. The U.S. has more than 2,000 farms with PED. The PED virus is likely to trim 2% or so off of 2014 hog slaughter.
The amount of pork in cold storage at the end of 2013, 557.13 million pounds, was up 2.0% from a month earlier and up 1.0% from a year earlier.
U.S. commercial hog slaughter in 2013 totaled 112,126,100 million head, the fourth highest ever. That was down 1,037,200 million head (0.9%) from the year before. Because of heavier slaughter weights, commercial pork production was down only 0.2% compared to 2012.
Friday morning's pork cutout value based on mandatory price reporting was $86.53/cwt FOB plants, up 4 cents from the week before and up $1.83 from a year ago.
The national average negotiated carcass price for direct delivered hogs on the morning report today was $77.86/cwt, up $1.91 from last Friday, but down $5.46 from a year ago. There was no price quotes for the western corn belt or Iowa-Minnesota this morning. The eastern corn belt averaged $77.95/cwt. Peoria had a live price top this morning of $53/cwt. Zumbrota, MN topped at $52/cwt. The top price Friday for interior Missouri live hogs was $54.25, down 75 cents from the previous Friday. This morning's hog carcass price averaged 90.0% of the cutout value.
Hog slaughter this week totaled 2.222 million head, down 1.8% from the week before, but up 4.2% compared to the same week last year.
Despite a cold winter, the average live weight of barrows and gilts in Iowa-Minnesota last week was a record 283.7 pounds, up 1.1 pounds from a week earlier and up 8.8 pounds from a year ago. This weight series has been above year-ago every week since March 2013. Barrow and gilt dressed weight has been at least 6 pounds heavier than a year ago for the last 11 weeks.
The February lean hog futures contract settled at $86.37/cwt today, up 20 cents from the previous Friday. April hog futures ended the week at $94.02/cwt, up $2.12 from the week before. May hogs gained 95 cents to close at $100.55. The June contract ended the week at $102.35/cwt. July closed at $100.80/cwt.
March corn futures ended the week at $4.295 per bushel, up 5 cents from the week before. June corn settled at $4.36/bushel.
March soybean meal futures ended the week at $425.70 per ton, down $8.80 from the previous Friday.