Poultry ready-to-cook weight up 6% from 2009, says USDA

Poultry certified wholesome in December 2010 totaled 3.69 billion pounds in ready-to-cook weight, up 6% from December 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest poultry slaughter report.
This growth can also be seen in an increase in the number of birds inspected across the board for December 2010: young chickens were up by 7% (to 4.23 billion pounds), mature chickens were up by 14% (to 69.7 million pounds), turkeys were up by 1% (to 578 million pounds) and ducks were up by 4% (to 15.0 million pounds) from December 2009 numbers. In addition, the birds' average weight was up, particularly for mature chickens at 5.79 pounds per bird, a 5% increase from 2009.