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Cattle and hog prices have fallen to the lowest levels in years as U.S. meatpackers produce the largest volume of meat in history.

Last week's 9.2% slide in hog futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was a dramatic turnaround for what was the best-performing commodity market in the first half of this year thanks to strong pork exports to China.

"The livestock markets have been beaten to oblivion in the last month," said Craig VanDyke, an analyst with Top Third Ag Marketing, an agricultural advisory firm in Chicago. "It's really scary."

Live-cattle futures at the CME for October delivery midday Monday rose 0.4% after earlier dropping as low as 97.35 cents a pound, a six-year low. October hog futures, meanwhile, were up 0.7% from the seven-year low of 49.325 cents a pound they touched Friday.

The buildup has stoked concerns over a glut of meat, poultry and other agricultural products in the U.S. Producers are on track to send a record number of hogs and chickens to slaughter this year, and beef production is rapidly increasing. Dairy farmers are spoiling excess milk in their fields as warehouses pile up excess cheese. Corn, soybean and wheat growers are also preparing for a fourth straight year of bumper harvests this fall.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday pegged the size of the nation's hog and pig herd on Sept. 1 at 70.851 million head, the largest on record. That compared with 69.946 million hogs predicted by a Wall Street Journal survey of analysts.

The figure illustrates how producers responded to lofty prices and profitable margins at the start of the summer by breeding more animals—before a dramatic plunge in prices to multiyear lows reversed the economics for many farmers.

The U.S. hog herd is still growing, even as the profit potential for many producers evaporates and export demand begins to cool.

Part of the problem is livestock's biological limits: a sow, or female breeding pig, gestates for around four months before delivering a litter of pigs. Market conditions can change dramatically from the time a farmer decides to expand operations to when those animals are ready for market.

In the week through Oct. 1, meatpackers produced 509.1 million pounds of beef, up 5.5% from the same period last year. Output has climbed 4.7% in 2016 over the volume produced by this time last year.

"We've got plenty of meat and we're not moving near as much as we should," Mr. VanDyke said.

Write to Kelsey Gee at kelsey.gee@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 03, 2016 14:15 ET (18:15 GMT)

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