Farrowing

When I was a little boy, my dad built his own farrowing huts for a pasture farrowing system.  Ever since then, we have continuously had a farrow to finish hog operation on our farm.  When I was in grade school, he remodeled our old dairy barn into a farrowing house with 24 crates in it.  That's when I started doing outside chores.  We  fed the sows by hand from 5 gallon buckets, and bedded the crates with fresh straw every couple of days.  Then we cleaned them out by hand also (with pitchfork, scraper, and shovel), and "limed" the barn between groups.
In 1973 Dad built our first confinement hog house.  It was a farrow/nursery building with a full pit and concrete slats.  It was a great labor saver, but it wasn't the ideal environment for newborn piglets.  After I came home from college and was farming full time, I designed a new farrowing/nursery building. An Ag Engineer did the specs and drawings, and we built it with the help of Vernon, Ted, and Myron Blunier.  It was put into service in 1980.  It has been remodeled and updated, but it is the building we are still using today.

I still believe that a small operation that utilizes family labor, grows its own corn, and uses modern technology and production practices can compete with the large operations.
But it takes desire, dedication to details, time commitment, and good animal husbandry skills.

Our crates, gestation feeders, and equipment are showing their age, and the next generation doesn't act enthused about raising hogs.  It has become especially time consuming during planting and harvest to do a good job with the hogs as the grain operation has grown.
So my brother and I have decided to stop farrowing and switch to a wean to finish operation.  We stopped breeding sows the end of December, and yesterday the first group of sows went to market.

We hope you enjoy the sausage and brats.

Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.
Isaiah 66:9