Regardless of your choice of radio stations, this week you can’t avoid commentaries regarding America’s Thanksgiving traditional protein source – turkey. As we have come to expect, HSUS and other anti-animal agricultural groups have weighed in with their own versions … Continue reading
Driving to a site visit this morning in Northwest Iowa I went past quite a few country elevators. In the past with ‘normal’ yields there have been huge piles of corn stored on the ground at these locations, often 1 … Continue reading
I have tracked the Iowa-Southern Minnesota live weight at slaughter (www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/NW_LS720.txt) for many years. My original interest was in defining the impact of summer heat as measured by the significant annual decline in sales weight for barrows and gilts that … Continue reading
If you drive anywhere in the upper Midwest where there are pig production facilities you are bound to occasionally sense an ‘aroma’ in the air as producers apply a year’s worth of manure to agricultural lands. While there is still … Continue reading
The flow of feeder pigs from Canada continues to slow in reaction to MCOOL legislation and the terrible economics of pig production for many Canadian producers this past year. For the week ending October 12, 2013, 61,330 live pigs weighing … Continue reading
The weather in Southern Minnesota this week is typical for the middle of November and the calendar says October 21. For many producers in the region, their management focus remains the corn and soybeans still standing in the fields rather … Continue reading
I was asked this morning for information on the labor needs of production facilities. While our facilities have become somewhat standardized (fully slatted, 1100-1250 hd/room), who provides the labor for daily pig care is not. Labor may be provided by … Continue reading
This week I’m getting a lesson in ‘fear’ that many of you have had when a key employee left for another opportunity. The research coordinator for our research barns last day of employment was last Friday. Until we are successful … Continue reading
Access to cost of production records for benchmarking purposes is difficult in the swine industry. As the industry has consolidated and specialized there is less sharing of cost data. In the 80’s and 90’s both Iowa State University and the … Continue reading
This week I participated in the Leman Swine Health Conference sponsored by the University of Minnesota. The obvious topic of discussion in the hallway and even for some of the sessions was the PED virus and its impact on the … Continue reading