News

January poultry production down 9% on year

The USDA says domestic poultry production during January was down 9% on the year at 4.111 billion pounds. Most of that was chicken at 3.654 billion pounds, also down 9% on the year, with turkey at 447.032 million pounds, a drop of 13%.

Average weights generally steady with a year ago, so the big issue was processing, with the chicken slaughter decreasing by 9% to 754.328 million head and the turkey slaughter was 13% lower at 16.739 million head, at least partially due to weather in some areas, which should also show up in February’s totals.

North Carolina was the top state for chicken production, while Minnesota led the way for turkey.

The USDA’s next set of poultry production estimates is out March 9^th.