LMIC: American Poultry Industry ‘In A Contraction Phase’

WASHINGTON — Higher feed costs, an over supply of broiler meat as well as economic slowdowns in the domestic and foreign markets have pressured poultry prices and left the industry struggling to maintain any type of profitability. As a result, the U.S. poultry industry is clearly in a contraction phase at this point in time, according to the Livestock Marketing Information Center.

Cutbacks have already been initiated by the broiler industry in the hatchery flock and industry is beginning to mitigate recent large year-to-year gains in bird weights. These actions have been evident in the weekly eggs set and chicks placed data since late summer as well as recent broiler slaughter numbers, L.M.I.C. said. Since late April, the number weekly eggs set by producers have been consistently below a year ago with the largest year-to-year declines posted in the fourth quarter; in fact, during October and November egg sets were down 8% and more than 3% lower than the 2002-2006 average.

Meanwhile at the same time, the number of chicks placed is down more than 7% thus far this quarter with further below year ago numbers expected given recent declines in egg sets.

Source: MeatPoultry.com