Average broiler liveweight at slaughter was 6.65 pounds over the six weeks to 17 October, down 1.7% on the year, with September’s official figure at 6.67 pounds, down 0.9%. Weights should still finish 2026 marginally above 2025, but LEAP Market Analytics reads the trend as a turning point.
Integrators have spent decades right-sizing birds, trading the efficiency of larger birds against carcass quality, oversized cuts and customers who want anything from just under 4 pounds liveweight to nearly 10. LEAP expects more tweaking, and expects the mix to keep drifting heavier, but thinks the industry may be past the point where annual gains above 1% show up regularly. The last one was in 2020.
Supply is ample rather than tight. Ready-to-cook production was 4.20 billion pounds in September, 1.3% below last year, though Q3 came in 2.2% up and the year to date is 3.4% ahead of 2025. Weights now look like a net negative for volume, with very modest gains expected in Q4 and Q1 and deficits next spring and summer.
Cold storage is already moving that way. Broiler holdings were 5% to 6% below both last year and the five-year average at the end of September, and frozen wing stocks sit well under the five-year average. That is not lifting chicken wing prices, which are easing again: cheap tenderloins make strips and boneless wings an easy substitute. Feed markets have at least stopped being a worry.
Read the full US broiler market analysis here.
