Yesterday I was at a new nursery site that went into use last summer. With the extreme cold weather, the owner was having difficulty keeping temperatures stable in the pig zone. When I arrived at the site there were 1400 … Continue reading
At the Iowa and Minnesota Pork Congress Hormel met with producers who supply live hogs to their slaughter plants. At the meetings they rolled out their new animal care guidelines that will become mandatory on September 1. For a majority … Continue reading
This morning I’m working on my presentation for this Thursday at the Minnesota Pork Congress. The topic they asked to me to present is “Benchmarking Data”. When we think of benchmarking data, we often think of large data sets from … Continue reading
At the two Passion for Pigs seminar locations in Iowa in December, Bob Baarsch from Herdstar.com did a presentation on the impact of out-of-feed events on herd health and performance. Since some of the last research I did while at … Continue reading
While I assume a large majority of the readers of this blog are US producers in the upper Midwest, I know of several frequent readers located in other countries of the world. For many of the readers of this blog, … Continue reading
This week I had the unpleasant experience (once again) of talking with a contract grower who was faced with a bill for pig death loss due to a ventilation failure. It’s not a lot of fun talking thru the sequence … Continue reading
When I ended my 2 year Army enlistment and began graduate school 38 years ago swine nutritionists were just beginning to talk about lysine as a critical nutrient in swine diets as opposed to crude protein. The 1974 version of … Continue reading
On Wednesday I was on the program at the Passion For Pigs meeting in Columbia, Missouri. Dr Ron Plain from the University of Missouri was the last speaker of the day. We are all familiar with Ron and his knowledge … Continue reading
In the past few months I’ve been asked repeatedly to comment further on my prediction that barrow and gilt slaughter weights will increase to 290 pounds live weight by the year 2022. This prediction is based on a review of … Continue reading
Last week I attended EuroTier in Hannover, Germany. This multi-species trade show hosts almost 160,000 visitors on alternate years. There were 2 exhibit halls dedicated to swine, with additional halls hosting feed ingredients, etc. plus a large number of exhibit … Continue reading