New Truck, New Haybine

May 6, 2012

I made a couple of new purchases recently.  The truck is a 98 Dodge with 4-wheel drive.  I bought it specifically for hauling my animals to the butcher.  It does have a cassette player though, so I found my old cassette tapes and have been rerocking the 90′s.

The haybine is a New Holland 488, made in the 80′s.  A friend found it for me on Craig’s List.  It’s in great shape.

I paid $8000 for the truck and $2400 for the haybine.  The truck gets terrible mileage, less than ten miles per gallon when pulling the stock trailer.

Sixty miles round-trip to the butcher with about one load per week equals 3,000 miles, and maybe another 1,000 miles picking up supplies, means I may only drive it 4,000 miles per year.  If I get eight miles per gallon, I’ll use 500 gallons of gas.  At $4 per gallon I’ll spend $2000 annually on gas.

As much as I think grazing animals are part of the solution to global-warming, using this much fuel to get my animals to the butcher leads me to believe I’m not part of the solution.  But alas, I’m part of a system.

I would love to keep all my animals in one herd, schedule a kill date at my butcher, then sort all the animals I want to cull and walk them to the butcher once per year.  This isn’t the world I live in, though.

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New Ritchie Waterer

February 19, 2012

I put a new waterer in this past fall.  One disadvantage to my farm is I don’t have a dependable, natural source of water.  I do have a waterway in my pasture which always flows with water in the spring, dries up during the summer, and is frozen during the winter.

As I wrote in “Sow Housing,” I’m housing different species of livestock together, so it’s convenient to have a heated combination waterer to water both cattle and hogs.  I also have some cows which I wanted to keep separate from their calves after weaning, so it’s also convenient that the waterer has two sides.

What did I pay for all this heated convenience?  $1300 installed.

I put up a temporary fence for the winter so the cows could access the waterer from the yard.  They are being fed hay on the cornstalks.  Unfortunately, the winter has been so mild, the ground hasn’t stayed frozen, so they are damaging a hay field they need to walk across.

Below is a picture of the inside.  The water pipes and heating elements are easily visible.  The thermostat is the round knob towards the top.

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2012 Price of Hog Feed

February 6, 2012

I did some figurin’ on hog feed prices.  I like to do this every year.  The current prices I’m using include: corn $.10/lb, soybean meal $.17/lb, pig premix $.40/lb, sow premix $.49/lb.  This is using $5.60 per bushel corn and $340/ton soybean meal.

I put 150 lbs. of sow premix in every ton of sow feed and 100 lbs. of pig premix in every ton of pig feed.

The sow gestation ration uses 250 lbs of soybean meal per ton.  The sow lactation ration uses 540 lbs of soybean meal per ton.  So if you do all the math, gestation ration is $.14/lb and lactation ration is $.15/lb.

The pig rations use anywhere from 250 lbs of soybean meal per ton for the largest pigs to 600 lbs of soybean meal per ton for the smallest pigs.  I adjust the amount of soybean meal based on my feed budget and the size of the pigs.

After all the math, the cheapest ration for the largest pigs is $.12/lb and the most expensive ration for the smallest pigs is $.15/lb, with the in between rations falling in between.

There are more expensive rations for smaller pigs, but with my new farrowing system I plan to let the piglets nurse longer, thereby eliminating the need for the more expensive starter pig diets.

These rations are near the historical highs, but not quite as high as last year.  I think these prices are the new normal and we will learn to live with them.

I plan on experimenting with more grazing and feeding forages and alternative feedstuffs this year.  I’ll have feed and production records to analyze next year at this time.

10 Comments | Curious hogs, Curious livestock costs, Curious prices | Permalink
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Farrowing in Hoop Building in January

January 22, 2012

Splitting up farming with my parents means I needed to find a different way to farrow.  We used a combination of crates and pens in a heated farrowing barn on my parents’ farm.  It worked well.  Last year we average 10 piglets born alive and 9 piglets weaned per litter.

I was excited to try farrowing in pens, because it’s a new challenge, and because I don’t like crates.  Crates do save piglets from crushing, however, so the question is, can I raise enough piglets this way to be economically viable?

Pictured above, I built ten farrowing pens in one of my hoop buildings so each sow and litter could farrow in privacy.  I used a combination of round bales of bedding and wire panels.  I used the bedding bales to make the pens larger, and to have dry bedding accessible at all times.

I didn’t think it would work very well to farrow in an unheated barn in January.  But I didn’t have many due to farrow, so I thought I would try it, so I could learn.

The first gilt farrowed two weeks ago when the temperature was in the 20′s.  The air temperature in the hoop building is about ten degrees warmer than outside.  She and the piglets did fine.  She had eleven born alive and one stillborn.  You can see the dead stillborn piglet mixed in with the placenta in the picture below.  The gilt laid on four piglets during the first 48 hours.  The younger the piglets are, the more vulnerable they are to crushing.  The remaining seven piglets are doing well.

The next two gilts farrowed during an extremely cold time.  Temps were around zero F with below zero wind chills.  Those piglets didn’t do well.  18 out of 20 piglets froze or were crushed in the first few days.

Two more gilts farrowed last night.  Temps are in the 30′s.  They are doing well.

Pictured below is a behavioral trait I want to select for genetically.  Instead of just flopping down and crushing piglets, the gilt scoops out a bowl in the straw with her snout, kneels on her front legs, thereby extending her udder all the way down into the straw, then lies down.  Very few piglets will be crushed this way.

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Shepherd’s Showpig Project: Conclusion

July 25, 2011

Shepherd, washing his showpigs.  After we washed them, we took them to the fair where they were weighed and ultrasounded for backfat and loin-muscle-area.  These three measurements are used in a formula to determine percent lean, which is how the pigs are ranked in the carcass show, pictured below.

The next day was the show.  Shepherd practiced walking them everyday, and the practice paid off, as the pigs followed his direction.  The judge was less impressed, however, and awarded Shepherd a white and a pink ribbon.   Winning showpigs today are extremely wide-made, with bulging muscles.  All of this muscle can cause structural problems, though, and the result is pigs which don’t handle stress well.

Shepherd’s pigs were very functional and problem-free, which are traits that are difficult to recognize, as the absence of a problem is more conceptual in nature.  Shepherd’s black and white pig was in the top half of the carcass show, though, and received a red ribbon.  This helps me know we have the muscle, it’s just in a more functional package.

Shepherd’s black and white pig weighed 242 lbs. and his white one weighed 283 lbs.  They gained 371 lbs. in 102 days for a rate of gain of  1.8 lbs. each.   They ate 1574 lbs. of feed, for an average of 7.5  lbs. per day for each of them.  They ate 4.2 lbs. of feed for every lb. they gained.

It was a very rewarding experience for Shepherd and the whole family.  I really appreciate all the people who help make the fair.

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Best Laid Plans

June 14, 2011

We built a small corral at the intersection of four pastures.  It’s way out back, and we never had a good way to catch a cow that needed help out there.

I checked the cows late one afternoon.  A cow was trying to calve, and looked like she had been straining for awhile, but nothing was showing.  We gave her an hour and checked her again.  Sure enough, one foot was sticking out, but not the other one.

We decided to get her in.  We were excited to use our new corral.  Two ATVs, a jeep, low-stress stockmanship, and we had her in the corral, barely.  She was starting to get hot.  She circled the corral a few times, charged at the gate I was standing by, put her nose over the top board, and jumped and pushed.  Once the board broke, her body weight broke down the wire panel, and she was over and out.

“Well, she’s on her own now.  No sense getting killed over her.”

The next morning, Dad drove back from checking the cows.

“Is she dead?”

“No, and she’s got a live calf, runnin’ around healthy.”

“Do you think we were just too early?”

“No, I think the calf got straightened out when she jumped the fence.”

Dad smiled.

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New Manure Spreader

April 8, 2011

We purchased a new manure spreader from Studer Super Service.  It’s a Kuhn/Knight Slinger 8114. It’s basically the newer model of our twenty-year-old spreader we junked this winter.  I want this one to last twenty years.  We paid $14,500 for it.

The auger on the right moves the material backwards as the auger on the left moves the material frontwards and to the side-unloading door.  The beaters, pictured below, sling the manure into the field.

I’m excited to use it.  We have two hoop buildings to clean out, and several hay feeding areas.  I want to cover the corn fields with a light layer of manure before corn planting.  April is going to turn into May, fast.

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February 2011 Price of Hog Feed

February 15, 2011

Historically high, and going up!  Karen asked what the price of soybeans is, and that got me to thinking, I haven’t calculated the price of hog feed lately.  I sat down and did some figurin’, and was shocked at the price.

Our basic hog feed mix is corn, soybean meal, and a vitamin/mineral/amino acid premix.  Corn is $7.17 for a 56 lb. bushel.  Soybeans are $14.16 for a 60 lb. bushel.  Dividing the cost by the lbs. gives us the price per lb.  Corn is $.128/lb., and soybeans is $.236/lb.

We buy soybean meal, which is soybeans with the oil removed and sold.  Our last bill for soybean meal was $.20/lb.  Our premix is around $.40/lb.  And we will use the $.128 market price for corn.

What is the breakdown of our hog feed?  80% is corn, 16.5% is soybean meal, and 3.5% is premix.  Let’s figure out what 100 lbs. of feed costs.

80 lbs. of corn multiplied by $.125 equals $10.24.  16.5 lbs. of soybean meal multiplied by $.20 equals $3.30.  3.5 lbs. of premix multiplied by $.40 equals $1.40.  Adding the three together totals $14.94 per 100 lbs.  So that gives us a price of almost $.15 per lb.

Our whole herd feed conversion is 4.  This means that it takes 4 lbs. of hog feed to produce 1 lb. of pork.  So if we multiply 4 lbs. times the $.15/lb gives us the cost of feed to produce 1 lb. of pork, $.60/lb.!!!!! I remember when the whole herd feed cost was $.30/lb., and all costs were $.40/lb.

The commodity hog  market price is around $.60/lb.  We used to think we were making great money at $.60/lb.  Now…?

Don’t cry for Curiousfarmer,  it’s not as bad as it seems.  While we buy the soybean meal and premix, and these are the actual prices we are paying, we grow our own corn, so it costs us whatever it costs us to grow it.  The $7.17 per bushel is  the opportunity cost to feed corn to hogs.  I haven’t figured lately, what it actually costs us to grow corn, but it’s probably less than half of the $7.17 market price.

So why are we still raising hogs, when it’s a break-even business this year?  Consistency.  Pa always said, “farmers who jump in and out of things never catch up.”  We feel it’s better to choose what we do, and work to do it well.  We make major changes based on our needs, and the longer-term fundamentals.

That doesn’t mean we won’t modify our operation.  We are selling all of our less productive sows and our older boars.  We will still have plenty of pork for our direct-market customers, but we won’t have as many hogs to sell on the commodity market.

Longer-term, what are these markets going to do?  How long will it take for the livestock markets to catch up to the grain markets, so  livestock farmers can make some money?  How much will food prices increase?

Thank you Karen, for a great question, which led to more questions.

5 Comments | Curious hogs, Curious livestock costs | Permalink
Posted by curiousfarmer

Versatile Hoop Buildings

September 25, 2010

Hogs in a hoop building.  This is the typical and intended use of the hoop buildings on our farm.

Hoop buildings are a single-arch structure covered with a tarp-like material that is stronger than a typical greenhouse.  They are an economical and efficient way to raise hogs.

Another draw is their versatility.  They make great storage for machinery, hay, or even grains.

We had an excellent oat crop this year and needed to make room for corn in our bins.  We put a tarp down to keep the ground underneath dry, then we augered the oats into the building.

I like how the stream of oats undulates, as it falls.  Below is a picture of the mountain of oats after we finished.

8 Comments | Curious hogs, Curious livestock costs | Permalink
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Building a New Fence III

June 1, 2010

This is the final fencing post.

A metal rod is pounded into the ground and an old disc blade is placed on the ground to protect the soil.  The roll of barb-wire is placed on the disc and one end of the wire is tied to the ATV.  I use the ATV to pull the wire to the other end of the fence and tie it to the end post.

After your first wire is in place as a guide wire, pound the rest of your posts into the ground.  We use a ratio of five metal to one wooden.  Metal posts are cheaper and don’t rot; but wooden posts are stronger and resist cattle pushing on the fence better.

A fence-stretcher is attached to the wire.  As Dad cranks the handle, I make sure the wire is not caught on any brush and is in line with the fence.  I use a pliers because if the fence-stretcher slips off, the wire will slip quickly and cut through your hand.

Once the proper tightness is achieved, the wire is tied to the end post and the fence-stretcher is removed.

A clip is used to secure the wire to the steel post.  There are notches on the post and we use these as markers to make sure the wires are evenly spaced.

Staples are used to secure the wire to the wooden posts.

This concludes my fencing posts.  If you have any questions, please comment.

1 Comment | Curious cattle, Curious livestock costs | Permalink
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