As a result the market has risen to record highs this week, with liveweight prices as high as $3.20 per kilogram.

Greg Richter from Primo Meats at Port Wakefield, in South Australia, says the shortage has been caused by hot conditions last summer.

"There's been a bit of a general infertility problem that happened earlier in the year and that's just starting to come through now, it always shows up about nine months after they have the problem," he said.

"It's a general thing every year but we had a lot of extra hot weather and that affects the fertility of the sows, although we are now just at the stage now where we probably expect that that would be about to turn around and we would start to get better numbers just coming into the Christmas."

Source: abc.net.au