The US hide market begins the holiday week projecting a low slaughter and steady prices. There were a few price changes today, but Heavy Texas Steer (HTS), Heavy Native Dairy Steer (HNDS), Dairy Cow (DC) and Branded Cow (BC) have improved in price by $1 at the minimum. Finding available containers and facing congestion continue to be an issue for ports and train stations.

The Jacobsen slaughter forecast for this week is 430,000 head, and if realized, will be 44,900 head less than the same week last year when it was 474,900.

Cattle slaughter finished last week 669,000 head, down 1.4 percent from a year ago. Over the next six weeks, slaughter is forecasted at an average of 575,000 head, down an average of 10.7 percent from the prior six weeks and down 3.7 percent compared to last year. 

Figure 1. 

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