 This is Agriculture Today. During the current quarter, hog producers slaughtered 889,000 hogs, while at the same time added back 881,000 to the breeding herd. Travis Avril is the livestock branch chief at USDA's National Ag Statistics Service on hogs and pigs. The current quarter, breeding herd is at 6,008,000 head, which is down 198,000 from previous year. Sow utilization is calculated from the current quarter.