On Dec. 1, the U.S. inventory of all hogs and pigs totaled 75.845 million head, up a half percentage from last year at this time, but down slightly from the quarter prior, according to the latest Hogs and Pigs report published Monday by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Breeding inventory came in at 6.004 million head, down 1% from Q3, and only up 0.1% from Dec. 2023. At 69.841 million head, market hog inventory was marginally down from last quarter, however that figure was a 0.5% increase from the year prior.

With 35.238 million head, the September-November 2024 pig crop was up 2% from 2023 levels and 1.5 percentage points larger than pre-report expectations. According to Lee Schulz, chief economist with Ever.Ag, this was “driven by the larger change in litter rates as opposed to the September-November sows farrowed, that was roughly consistent with year-ago levels.”

“As we look the September-November pig crop did set a record for this particular quarter at 35.238 million head. This is a bit of a change from where the previous records have been for these pig crops were in 2019 and in 2020,” Schulz says. “We do still see the December market hog inventory was about 1 million head off of the record large of 70.846 million head back in 2020.”

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Representing 49% of the U.S. breeding herd, sows farrowed 2.96 million head, a slight decrease from the year prior. During the past three months, U.S. hog and pig producers set another record, weaning an average 11.92 pigs per litter, up 2.2% from 2023 and 1.6% percentage point larger than pre-report expectations.

“This is very much a return to productivity levels we've seen recently, but not what was shown in the last Hogs and Pigs Report,” Schulz says.

For the under-50-pounds weight category, there were 21.834 million head, up 1.2% from year ago figures, and 0.7 percentage point larger than pre-report expectations. In the 50-to-119 pounds group, there were 19.426 million head, up 1.4% from 2023 and 1.1 percentage points larger than pre-report expectations.

In the 120-to-179-pounds group, there were 14.824 million head, down 0.6% from last year at this time and similar to pre-report forecasts. Finally, for the 180-and-over group there were 13.757 million head, 0.5% lower from 2023 levels. Pre-report expectations had that figure 1% lower.

U.S. hog producers intend to have 2.93 million sows farrow between December 2024 and February 2025, and 2.95 million sows farrow between March 2025 and May 2025.

The total number of hogs under contract owned by operations with over 5,000 head, but raised by contractees, accounted for 50% of the total U.S. hog inventory, down 1% from 2023.

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Iowa hog producers accounted for the largest inventory among the states, at 24.6 million head. Minnesota had the second largest inventory at 9.5 million head. North Carolina was third with 8.2 million head.

To obtain an accurate measurement of the U.S. swine industry, NASS surveyed 6,046 operators across the nation during the first half of December. Schulz notes since 1999 and the early 2000s, survey response rates have fallen from the mid-80% range to 60% and below.

Due to program changes following the 2022 Census of Agriculture, the following states were not included in the December 2024 survey: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.