Livestock
Year-over-year contraction continued for Canada’s cattle herd at the start of 2021, while newborn piglet counts kept Canada’s hog herd on the rise during the same period, according to Statistics Canada. StatsCan on Monday reported 11.2 million cattle on Canadian farms at Jan, 1, 2021 — down one per cent from the year-earlier date and […] Read more
Canada’s year-end cattle herd continues shrinking
Slaughter beat pre-pandemic pace in second half, StatsCan says
U.S. livestock: Live cattle hit five-week low
Technical selling, weaker beef prices bring pressure
Chicago | Reuters — Technical selling on Monday drove Chicago Mercantile Exchange live cattle futures to their lowest prices in more than five weeks, while lean hog futures recovered from a sell-off. The cattle market’s losses brought the most-active April contract down six per cent from a life-of-contract high reached on Feb. 16. Strong domestic […] Read more
Beef cattle sector weighs in for federal food processing study
Cattlemen's Association makes recommendations to Commons' ag committee
The House of Commons’ standing committee on agriculture will soon be wrapping up its study into Canada’s processing capacity. Since November, MPs have heard from more than 50 witnesses on the matter — including representatives from the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, whose president Bob Lowe and executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft testified at a committee meeting Tuesday. […] Read more
Spanish report calls for cull of over 850 cattle on pariah ship
Cattle were bound for Turkey but turned away over bluetongue fears
Cartagena | Reuters — More than 850 cows that spent months aboard a ship wandering across the Mediterranean are not fit for transport anymore and should be killed, according to a confidential report by Spanish government veterinarians seen by Reuters. The cows were kept in what an animal rights activist called “hellish” conditions on the […] Read more
Risk of human spread of H5N8 bird flu deemed low
Seven people infected but asymptomatic, WHO says
Geneva | Reuters — The risk of human-to-human spread of the H5N8 strain of bird flu appears low after it was identified for the first time worldwide in farm workers in Russia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. A separate influenza strain, H1N1, that emerged from pigs and spread rapidly worldwide among humans […] Read more
U.S. livestock: Hog futures drop on end-of-month profit taking
Live cattle book biggest one-day drop since November
Chicago | Reuters — U.S. hog futures dropped 2.9 per cent on Friday, with traders locking in profits from the rally on the last session of February. The loss, which pulled the market from the nearly two-year high hit on Thursday, was the biggest for hogs in percentage terms since Nov. 19. It snapped a […] Read more
Dairy farmers asked to pass on palm byproducts in rations, for now
Seek out other ingredients while hard-butter issue under review, DFC asks
Canadian dairy farmers whose feed rations include supplements made with palm byproducts are being asked to consider other options while consumer complaints over butter are probed more closely. Dairy Farmers of Canada on Thursday asked its farmer members to “consider alternatives to palm supplements” pending the outcome of a review of “issues that have been […] Read more
U.S. livestock: Hogs firm on follow-through buying, cash strength
U.S. beef export sales down on week
Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Mercantile Exchange live hog futures rose for the fourth day in a row on Thursday, hitting its highest since May 2019 on follow-through buying after rising the daily trading limit on Wednesday, traders said. Strength in the cash market also supported hog prices but the market closed off its high […] Read more
Just call it LPI for short
Reading Time: < 1 minute The price insurance program has adopted a shorter handle as part of an effort to “expand awareness and enrolment.” Formerly called the Western Livestock Price Insurance Program, it is now just called Livestock Price Insurance and has a revamped website. Despite the name change, the program is only for producers in Western Canada. Last year, […] Read more
Canada’s active PED case count dwindling
Affected Manitoba farms now all presumptive-negative
The number of active outbreaks of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) on hog farms in Canada has shrunk to a few in Eastern Canada, with affected sites elsewhere now believed negative for the disease. Manitoba Pork announced Wednesday that the last of the premises to report a PED outbreak in that province in 2020 has now […] Read more
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