farmerboy76 - 3/14/2014 16:12 It probably won't hurt feed demand as much as most think. We need to raise x amount of pounds of pork and we will have to do that with less numbers so that means bigger carcasses and that also means less feed efficiency. We will have less hogs but each hog is gonna eat more pounds of corn before it goes to slaughter. There is a limit to how big hogs will be fed unless packers pay for bigger hogs. Take for example Farmland, (John Morrel is the same) I get almost the exact same $'s/hd for a 200 lb carcass as I do for a 250 lb carcass. The 200 lb carcass was from a 260 lb live hog and the 250 carcass was from a 325 lb live hog. I don't care how cheap the feed is I can't feed a hog over 320 lbs and come out ahead. Once they cross over 237 lbs on the carcass (320 live) I take an $16/cwt hit on that hog. That's ~$38 lost by feeding that hog 1 lb too heavy. Realistically I can't feed hogs over 290 lbs (avg) without getting way too many hd over 320 lbs and getting the snot kicked out of me on the sort loss. I know Tyson pays better for big huge hogs but not every pig can go to Tyson. Until packers move their weight windows up I think we're already getting real close to the top end of hog weights. For the sake of the industry I hope they leave the weight windows alone. My knees don't need the hogs 10 lbs heavier, neither do the gates, feeders, etc. | 
PEDV
