As of June 1, there were 74.5 million hogs and pigs across U.S. swine production systems. According to the latest Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, the Q2 inventory came in 1% above last year’s supply and just a trace above last quarter’s report.

From that total, 6.01 million were kept for breeding, a 3% reduction from the year prior and a slight decrease from the previous quarter.

Market hog inventory totaled 68.5 million head, up 2% from 2023, but just a marginal increase from Q1.

Steve Meyer, lead economist, Ever.ag, says the report is “as expected.”

“I thought we would grow the breeding herd slightly as we went through this year, and then be larger than the breeding herd as we get out to December,” Meyer says. “Right now, given the results of this report, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. So, we're going kind of go sideways here with just over 6 million head.”

For the under-50-pounds weight category, there were 21.589 million head, up 1% from the year prior. In the 50-to-119 pounds group, there were 19.208 million head, a 1% increase from 2023.

In the 120-to-179-pounds group, there were 14.630 million head, a 2% rise from last year at this time. Finally, for the 180-and-over group there were 13.052 million head, also up 2% from 2023.

Between March and May 2024, 34 million pigs were weaned on U.S. farms, up 2% from the same period last year. Sows farrowing during this period totaled 2.94 million head, a slight increase from 2023. The sows farrowed during Q2 represented 49% of the breeding herd.

The average pigs saved per litter was 11.56 for the March-May period, compared to 11.36 last year.

“Analysts thought it would go up by 2.3%. I thought it would beat that just a little bit, and it only went up by 1.7%. So, a little bit of slowing in the reproductive efficiency rate. We've been up 3% and 4% over the last year or so,” Meyer says.

While he doesn’t anticipate pigs per litter keeping up the 1.5% increase each quarter over last year, more likely falling back to about 1%, Meyer notes the U.S. still has a sow herd that is growing and its genetic capabilities.

“One of the things is can we get all our disease problems on hand. That kind of ebbs and flows to some degree, but right now we're doing a pretty good job on pigs for litter, much better than we were just a year and a half ago,” Meyer says.

As for intentions, U.S. hog producers intend to have 2.96 million sows farrow between June and August 2024, a 3% decrease from actual farrowings during the same period last year and a 4% drop from the same period two years prior. For September through November intended farrowings are 2.94 million sows, down just 1% from the same period in 2023, but a 5% reduction from 2022.

Iowa hog producers accounted for the largest inventory among the states, at 24.6 million head. Minnesota had the second largest inventory at 9.20 million head. North Carolina was third with 7.60 million head.

The total number of hogs under contract owned by operations with over 5,000 head, but raised by contractees, accounted for 52% of the total U.S. hog inventory, up 1% from the previous year.

Revisions

All inventory and pig crop estimates for June 2023 through March 2024 were reviewed using final pig crop, official slaughter, death loss and updated import and export data. The revision made to the March 2024 all hogs and pigs inventory was 0.3% The net revision made to the December 2023 all hogs and pigs inventory was 0.7%. A net revision of 0.2% was made to the September 2023-November 2023 pig crop.