We’re far enough along with harvest that many producers have begun pumping manure pits. Yesterday I received a call regarding 30 pigs that died over the weekend during pumping and last night an email about rumors of increased pig deaths this year. Read More...

While I missed writing a blog last week, I did have the chance to visit with many readers of this commentary at the Leman Swine Health Conference and Minnesota Nutrition Conference. Both conferences had excellent speakers/topics. In spite of the short term angst in the industry because of grain price and availability concerns, there is optimism for many beginning next summer. Read More...

At a meeting of the Minnesota Pork Board research committee yesterday, Dr John Goihl, a consulting swine nutritionist in Minnesota, put the problem of high feed grain prices and limited supplies in perspective. He said there are really two different scenarios that producers face in managing their nutrition programs for their swine production units in the coming year. Read More...

With the extremely large numbers of slaughter pigs coming to market in the past 3 weeks there has been a lot of commentary written on where these numbers of pigs are coming from. Are producers pulling pigs forward in an attempt to reduce sale weights and feed grain usage or are pig numbers really this large and USDA undercounted pigs in the last 2 pig reports? Read More...