Last week, Michael’s Foods (the country’s largest liquid egg supplier) announced that it lost 4.5M egg layers in Iowa, or 12% of their total capacity, to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza or HPAI. Michael’s is still recovering from losing 5.7M birds (14% of total) in May 2024 and 4.2M birds (10% of total) in Dec 2023.

The labor market bounced back in Nov, as workers sidelined by storms and strikes got back to work. The U.S. economy added 227,000 net new jobs in Nov, up from just 36,000 Oct. The unemployment rate (a separate survey) rose from 4.1% to 4.2%.

It was a great weekend to give thanks for our blessed lives - and to be grateful for being an American. We are coming off a hotly contested but peaceful election. Both election security and transparency reached new heights. That should go a long way toward convincing deniers that elections are legit.

In Friday’s monthly cattle report, the USDA said feedlot inventories on Nov. 1st were 11.99M head, up slightly (+0.3%) from a year ago. New placements onto feedlots in Oct. were up 5.3%. The jump in placements likely indicates that producers are taking a pass this fall on hold back heifers for potential herd expansion in 2025.