As packers slow and stop production lines due to COVID-19, pork producers are looking at limited options to slow production on their farms.
Farm Journal Economist Chip Flory and John Nalivka of Sterling Marketing looked at how producers are managing throughput throughout the chain on Wednesday’s Farm Journal Live newscast.
“They may be doubling-up some of the capacity in houses; I don’t think there’s a whole lot of that going on right now, but they’re adjusting rations,” Flory said. “Once those hogs hit about 250 pounds, I’ve been told that they go to straight corn and maybe even a coarse grind on that corn, crank down the doors on the feeders to make them work a little harder. This one I find interesting… turn the temperature up in the barn by a degree per day, doing it at a pace that doesn’t put the health of the animals at risk. But what they’re trying to do is stimulate summer as quick as they can.”
Watch the full analysis of the livestock market response to recent plant closures in the Farm Journal Live replay in the player above.
