By DOUG SCHMITZ

Iowa Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa — Last month’s hog numbers had no significant surprises, though the total count was slightly up from pre-report trade forecasts, as U.S. farmers continue to rebound from the massive sow losses they suffered in the porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) outbreak last year.

That’s according to farm market analysts reacting to the USDA’s Dec. 1 Quarterly Hogs & Pigs report. “This report largely allowed the industry to take a sigh of relief,” Joe Kerns, managing director of Kerns & Associates in Ames, Iowa, told reporters Dec. 23.

“The great growing conditions and economic motivation to expand significantly were at the forefront of traders’ thoughts,” added Kerns, who joined Lee Schulz, Iowa State University assistant professor of agricultural economics in Ames, and Altin Kalo, commodity analyst at Steiner Consulting Group in Manchester, N.H., in analyzing the report.

The last quarterly hog inventory report of 2014 stated as of Dec. 1, there were 66.1 million hogs and pigs on U.S. farms, up 2 percent from December 2013 and up 1 percent from Sept. 1, 2014. The report also noted the U.S. breeding inventory, at 5.97 million head, was up 4 percent from 2013 and up 1 percent from the previous quarter. “You have to go back 15 years or so to see the same kind of increase in the breeding herd that we are seeing now,” Kalo said.

The report stated U.S. market hog inventory, at 60.1 million head, was up 2 percent from 2013 and up 1 percent from last quarter. “In the last two quarters, we’ve added about 100,000 hogs,” Schulz said. “Given the farrowing intentions moving forward, and even a conservative estimate on the number of pigs saved per litter, it puts us at or near a record pig crop.”

The report also stated the September-November 2014 pig crop, at 29.4 million head, was up 4 percent from 2013, with farrowing sows during this period totaling 2.87 million head, up 3 percent from 2013; the sows farrowed during this quarter represented 48 percent of the breeding herd.

The report said average pigs saved per litter was a record-high 10.23 for the September-November period, compared to 10.16 the previous year. Pigs saved per litter by size of operation ranged from 8.1 for operations with 1-99 hogs and pigs to 10.3 for operations with more than 5,000 animals.

What’s more, hog producers intend to have 2.87 million sows farrow during the December-February 2015 quarter, up 4 percent from the actual farrowings during the same period in 2014 and up 3 percent from 2013. Intended farrowings for March-May, at 2.9 million sows, are up 3 percent from 2014 and up 3 percent from 2013. The total number of hogs under contract owned by operations with more than 5,000 head, but raised by contractors, accounted for 46 percent of the total U.S. hog inventory, down from 48 percent last year.

As the nation’s top hog-producing state, Iowa had 20.9 million hogs and pigs on Dec. 1, tying September 2013’s numbers for the highest inventory on record, according to USDA. In Illinois, the report stated total hogs and pigs on Dec. 1 was 4.6 million head, up 1 percent from both Sept. 1, 2014, and the prior year.

In Indiana, the total hog and pig inventory was estimated at 3.6 million head, down 50,000 from December 2013. In Kentucky, inventory on Dec. 1 was estimated at 325,000, up 10,000 head from December 2013. In addition, Michigan’s total hog and pig inventory was estimated at 1.1 million head, up 40,000 from a year previous. Ohio’s total hog and pig inventory was estimated at 2.15 million head, down 50,000 from 2013. On Tennessee farms, the total hog and pig inventory was estimated at 200,000 head, up 30,000 head from December 2013, the report stated.

While PED destroyed many sows in 2014, Kalo said, “The industry has gained a lot of knowledge on PED and even if it becomes endemic, it’s not that it cannot be controlled. We have the knowledge and people to deal with it. Our expectation is that we’ll be able to contain it in the fall of 2015.”