Three legs supporting smoking hot feeder pig market

An old adage says, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Fire needs fuel, oxygen and an ignition source. These three are often referred to as the fire triangle. If any one of these components is missing, a fire cannot start or continue to burn. The feeder pig market is smoking hot right now, and it has a triangle too. Its three components are expected market hog profit, changes in the U.S. pig crop and changes in Canadian feeder pig imports. Feeder pig prices up double or more Prices for early weaned 10-12 pound pigs ended 2024 remarkably strong and carried that momentum into 2025. That’s according to USDA’s National Direct Feeder Pig Report. For the week ending Jan. 10, USDA reported the weighted average price at $82.37 per head on a cash basis (Figure 1) and $76.24 per head on a formula basis. The price ranges were $52.50 – $95 and $49.51 – $90, respectively. During the same week last year, the cash price was $35.43 and the formula price was $43.43 with ranges of $11 – $45 and $35.0