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2019 poultry production tops 50 billion pounds

The USDA says 2019 poultry production was 50.395 billion pounds, up 1.233 pounds from 2018. Chicken made up most of the total at 44.434 billion pounds, also up more than a billion pounds on the year, with turkey production down slightly at 5.818 billion pounds and duck up about a million at 140.204 million pounds. The top production state for chicken was Georgia, while Minnesota led the list on turkey.

9.339 billion chickens were slaughtered in 2019, along with 227.660 million turkeys and 27.544 million ducks, and average light weights were also up on the year. All chickens averaged 6.32 pounds, turkeys averaged 32.01, and ducks averaged 7.03 pounds.

2019 ended with 1.213 billion pounds of poultry in cold storage.