East Central South Dakota | Can anyone tell me if USDA has adjusted their protocol of counting animals on feed to the new standard of much higher slaughter weights. My son's college friend in Iowa is a hog integrator and just sold out a barn of hogs and they averaged 306 pounds. My neighbor just shipped a pen of live cattle, and they averaged 1789 pounds. No discounts for heavy's in either case, just "keep them coming". It seems logical that we are burning more corn in the feed usage category than the old historical days of 240-pound butchers and 1300-pound live cattle. Maybe 1891 can answer the question.
EDIT. I can see I did a poor job in conveying my thoughts. Not really interested in the meat side or cold storage. My thoughts are we are using more corn then the animal on feed reports would suggest or signal. Corn usage would be higher then past historicals for same amount of animals
Edited by white shadow 4/16/2025 14:29
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numbers on feed vs. slaughter weight....
