After seven weeks of higher prices, U-S hog prices were mostly lower last week.
University of Missouri economist Ron Plain says the average negotiated carcass price was $78.21 a hundredweight.
That's a dollar 18 lower than the week before.
The national average negotiated barrow and gilt price was $76.48 per hundred, down $3.57 from the week before.
Plain's weekly report put U-S hog slaughter at 2 point 147 million head.
That's up almost 1 per cent from the previous week and over 9 per cent higher than the same week last year.
The University of Missouri economist reported calculations from Iowa State University giving that state's farrow-to-finish operations a profit of $2.84 per head in April.
That's apparently the first profit for those producers after two months of losses - based on cost-of-production and market prices.
