Tyler Fulton, the Director of Risk Management with h@ms Marketing Services, says until the release of this report there was common belief that the US hog slaughter would be running roughly two per cent below year ago levels for the next two to three months.

Tyler Fulton-h@ms Marketing Services:

The issue really is related to operations that utilize artificial insemination in their herds and a year ago, or maybe not quite a year ago, there was some problems with conception rates and so there was a thought that we would be looking at lower market hogs coming to market likely over the March through May to even June time frame.

The report does not indicate any kind of reduction in hog numbers.

That doesn't mean to say that it's not going to happen but the USDA definitely did not pick it up in their survey.

So I think it's a reasonable expectation to be a little bit suspicious of any ideas that we would be looking at significantly tighter numbers and that could put some pressure on prices where we typically usually see some support going into the late spring time frame.

Later on I think what the numbers suggest in terms of the kept for breeding number is that we probably don't need to worry too much about having too many hogs this fall.

Fulton says generally speaking the belief is the US hog slaughter capacity is around 2.5 million hogs and it looks like, if these numbers are accurate, we won't be bumping up to that level in any more than the odd week.