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APRIL 2005 |
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These specialty markets offer so many opportunities that Dan believes it could all lead to a future on the family farm for every one of their five children. The Wilsons are farrowing 200 sows on pasture. "My brother Colin and I are second-generation pasture farrowers," said Dan. "Our dad started pasture farrowing about 40 years ago. It was pasture farrowing, because of its low overhead and ease of expansion, that allowed him the finances and the freedom to help two sons start farming." Because they didn't follow the trend in the pork industry to build expensive new buildings in their early years, the low-cost start by farrowing hogs on pasture allowed the brothers to get on sound financial footing early on in their careers. Supplemented by income from 800 acres of mixed crops that included corn and soybeans, the 200 sows earned a good living for the two brothers and their growing families. Last year Dan and Lorna took full ownership in the hog operation. They continue the family tradition of pasture farrowing, but with some modern tweaks. For starters, the 16 acres devoted to hogs each year are rotated in a four-year cycle designed to give the pigs clean, disease-free ground each year, plus alfalfa to graze. It also offers the advantage of spreading the hogs' manure naturally, requiring no human labor. The four 16-acre fields are laid out side by side. Corn is grown in one of the fields every year, followed by soybeans the second year, then oats underseeded with alfalfa and orchard grass in the third year. The alfalfa and grass regrow in their second year when the field is turned over to the farrowing sows.
"They eat the alfalfa best when it's lush and growing, before it blossoms," said Dan. Of course, the pigs' habit of rooting can quickly destroy plants. To make it more difficult for sows to root, he puts rings in their noses. Small, portable huts are spread around the farrowing paddocks. Each sow chooses the hut in which she will farrow. Piglets inadvertently being crushed by sows lying on them is a pitfall of pasture farrowing. "We cull sows that kill babies," said Dan. "But other sows stay around for three years, giving us eight litters. We try to keep replacements out of these older sows that have a proven track record. At birth each piglet gets a coded ear notch so we can track its genetics." By culling sows that lie on their babies Dan has reduced the loss to 2 to 2.5 pigs per litter, while the overall weaning rate of sows farrowing outdoors is seven to eight pigs per litter. Handling newborn piglets is another potential pitfall of pasture farrowing. Sows are dangerously protective of their young, and on pasture there's no way to restrain them while handling their piglets. Baby pigs need two important operations soon after birth: The boars must be castrated, and all must have their needle eye teeth clipped. Unclipped, these teeth cut the nursing mothers' udders and injure other piglets in play fighting. To handle babies safely Dan works with the natural instincts and body chemistry of the sow. Within the first 12 hours after farrowing, sows are lethargic. He takes advantage of this window of calm behavior to crawl quietly into the hut beside them to castrate males and clip the eye teeth of piglets. The Duroc-Chester White sows are carefully culled for disposition. "Our sows come from a lineage that's been selected for mild temperaments for 40 years," he said.
As much as the Wilsons love farrowing sows on pasture in summer, the cash flow needs of the farm demand they also farrow in winter. "Because a sow's gestation period is 114 days, if you time it right, you can get 2.5 farrowings per sow per year," said Dan. Over the years they have wrestled with the problem of trying to find a winter farrowing system they like. Earlier in their farming careers, Dan and his brother invested in a state-of-the-art confinement nursery facility. But they didn't like it. "We abandoned that system because we didn't like the smell of a confinement system, and we didn't like having to deal with the manure," said Dan. "Besides that, the pigs were hard to move in and out of the facility. We weren't used to fighting pigs to get them to move where we wanted them to go because pasture pigs are very easy to move. They run and all you have to do is head them in the right direction." They found a winter-farrowing system they liked by imitating the Swedish deep-bedded system of farrowing. Their present farrowing and nursery building measures 100 feet long by 48 feet wide. It is divided into four rooms, each measures 23 feet by 48 feet with a 12-foot ceiling. There are 6-foot by 8-foot portable pens, or farrowing boxes, along each of the long walls of the room. Each room has its own ventilation system. Three to five days before sows are ready to farrow, the farrowing boxes are set up in the rooms, bedded with straw and 11 sows are put in each room. "We try to group the sows so that all sows in each room will farrow within five days of each other," he added. "To start with there is no straw placed in the open area between the two rows of boxes. This is to discourage them from farrowing in the open area." Each doorway to a box is fitted with a 4-inch roller set 14 inches above the floor. The roller keeps the baby pigs in the boxes for at least four to five days. After all piglets in the room are 10 to 14 days old, the boxes are taken out so sows and piglets can mingle freely in the open space.
"We have measured places in the bedding pack where it was running up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit," said Dan. "As the bedding composts it gives off water vapor. So we need a fairly high ventilation rate to keep the humidity in the rooms at acceptable levels." Manure from the farm's indoor hog facilities provides most of the farm's fertility needs for 350 acres. Dan and Colin farm 800 acres in partnership, growing corn, soybeans, barley, oats, and alfalfa. They grow about 350 acres of soybeans each year for a cash crop. The corn, barley, and oats are grown for hog feed, with Dan buying part of Colin's share. He also buys alfalfa from the partnership to winter feed a flock of sheep and for summer grazing hogs. The Wilsons use 200 to 250 tons of straw each year. Two-thirds of this comes from their own farm. "The beauty of our deep-bedded wintering system is that it lets sows live by natural instincts much as they do in summer," said Dan. "Our wintering and summering systems are a gentler, more relaxed way of raising hogs. We don't have to worry about getting sick from working in closely confined buildings, and the work lets our whole family get involved." For more information: www.ctic.purdue.edu/Core4/Nutrient/ManureMgmt/Paper38.html
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