Despite expectations, the national swine breeding herd has seen a year-over-year increase.
Livestock specialist, Robin Schmahl explains why analysts were expecting a decline in the latest quarterly hogs and pigs report: “We were at 100 percent as far as kept for breeding was concerned. Trade was looking at 99.7, so that’s pretty much in line, a little bit more than actually, they were looking at for breeding, so part of that was the idea that it would be lower due to high feed costs as well as the uncertainty over Prop-12— that’s still circulating around, still going through some processes we don’t know if that’s going to be implemented or not. But, that was why the trade had anticipated a little bit of retraction as far as the kept for breeding.”
This is the first time the breeding herd has increased in over two years.
