Holiday Turkeys
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. As the weather turns cooler across the US, many shoppers are beginning to plan holiday meals.
American Farm Bureau Federation Economist Bernt (BEAR-ent) Nelson says USDA’s latest Turkeys Raised Report gives us some important insight on the size of the U.S. flock ahead of Thanksgiving …
NELSON … “Now this number came in estimated at 195 million turkeys raised in 2025. This is down about three percent from 200 million turkeys raised in 2024. Now, if we look a little bit further back, this is down 16 percent from about 10 years ago, and 35 percent from the peak of the report, which had about 301 million turkeys being raised in 1996.”
The good news, Nelson says, is even though the September cases of bird flu are up a bit, turkeys for Thanksgiving are already in the pipeline so there shouldn’t be much impact …
NELSON … “It shouldn't have a major impact going forward on the prices as we get closer to Thanksgiving. I think you'll see a little bit more consistency. The prices are definitely higher than last year. We see that uptick right now in the wholesale price by about 40 percent, so we'll definitely see some price increases there, but I don't think they're going to go a whole lot higher above where they are at.”
Again, Bernt Nelson of the American Farm Bureau.
