“The most profitable year on record” for hog producers “will be 2014 with estimated profits of near $55 a head,” says economist Chris Hurt of Purdue. With hog prices trending downward, profits for 2015 are likely to be $36 per head, which would be the third highest since 1990. “High hog prices and lower costs are the keys to current profitability,” Hurt writes at farmdoc daily. Feed prices are down greatly since the drought of 2012. Hog prices – followed by pork prices at the meat counter – skyrocketed in the spring when disease reduced the hog herd.