US Poultry Ready-to-Cook Weight Up 2 Percent
US - The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) comment on the slightly higher poultry weights and slaughter levels in their monthly Poultry Slaughter Report.
Poultry certified wholesome during July 2003 (ready-to-cook weight) totaled 3.44 billion pounds, up
2 percent from the amount certified in July 2002. Updated totals for June 2003 show that 3.27 billion
pounds were certified.
The preliminary total live weight of poultry inspected during July 2003 was 4.61 billion pounds, up
2 percent from a year ago. Young chickens inspected totaled 3.90 billion pounds, up 2 percent from July
2002, and mature chickens at 74.4 million pounds, were down 7 percent from the previous year.
Turkey inspections totaled 623 million pounds, up 1 percent, and ducks totaled 12.5 million pounds, down 2 percent.
Young chickens slaughtered during July 2003 averaged 5.12 pounds per bird, up 1 percent from
July 2002. The average live weight of mature chickens was 5.93 pounds per bird, up 8 percent from a
year ago.
Turkeys slaughtered during July 2003 averaged 26.3 pounds per bird, up slightly from
July 2002.
Ante-mortem condemnations during July 2003 totaled 21.7 million pounds. Condemnations were
0.47 percent of the live weight inspected, compared to 0.53 percent a year earlier. Post-mortem
condemnations, at 44.3 million pounds (N.Y. dressed weight), were 1.07 percent of quantities inspected,
compared with 1.16 percent a year earlier.
Young Chickens: Live Weight Slaughtered,
By Month, 2000-2003 |
Young Turkeys: Live Weight Slaughtered,
By Month, 2000-2003 |
Poultry Slaughter Estimates
Data Sources: Primary data for poultry slaughter estimates are obtained from the Poultry Inspection
Form (FSIS 6000-21). This form is completed by inspectors of the Food Safety and Inspection Service
(FSIS), USDA for all Federally Inspected (FI) plants. Over 99 percent of the total U.S. slaughter for any
species is under FI. The FSIS 6000-21 forms collect number of head slaughtered daily under FI by
species and class as well as condemnations and total live and dressed weights. Approximately 350
plants in the U.S. are operated under Federal Inspection.
Revision Policy: Revisions are generally the result of late reports received by FSIS from plants and are
usually less than one-half of 1 percent of the preliminary totals. Revisions for the previous month and
year-to-date totals are published in each monthly release. Final data are published in the annual
summary released in April and reflect any late reports or corrections which occurred after the monthly
revision were published.
Procedures and Reliability: Plant inspectors submit forms (FSIS 6000-21) weekly summarizing the
plant's activity. When inconsistencies in the data are detected, the reports are returned to the inspectors
for correction. Inspectors correct or validate the report and resubmit it. The reports cover weekly
activities through Saturday night and reported data are allocated to the appropriate month as it enters the
database.
A NASS computer program provides a review of current data with historical data for each plant. An edit
provides checks for the detection of errors such as invalid plant information, duplication, and erroneous
data. Data are summarized weekly and accumulated to monthly totals for this release.
Data for major slaughter plants with missing reports are adjusted prior to publication to assure that all
plants slaughtering a significant portion of a specific class are accounted for each week. Estimates for
missing weeks are made only after verifying that the plant was in operation. Adjustments are based on
either the previous week's information or a week determined to be similar to the one missing. Late
reports replace imputed data as they become available. While there is a varying degree of
incompleteness from month to month, it has only a minimal impact on the published totals.
Poultry slaughter estimates are based on a census of operating plants and, therefore, have no sampling
error. However, they may be subject to errors such as omissions, duplications, and mistakes in
reporting, recording, and processing the data. These errors are minimized through strict quality controls
in the edit and summarization process, and a careful review of all reported data for consistency and
reasonableness.
State data are published for selected states for young chickens and young turkeys. State data are not
published if less than three plants operate for a species in a State, or if one plant has 60 percent or more
of the total live weight for that species. Data for all states not published are included in the “Other
States” category. Also included in this category are data for published states that are confidential
(denoted by an *). Data for all states are included in the U.S. totals. For 2002, young chickens were
killed in 34 states, young turkeys in 21 states.
To view the full report, including tables, please click here (PDF format, 21 pages)
Source: USDA NASS - Poultry Slaughter - 5th September 2003