Salt Lake City Skiing

(Brighton)

A couple of weeks ago, Mike and I went out to Salt Lake City, Utah with Samantha and Alex to visit our cousin, Megan, and her husband, Michael.  We planned on a quick 3 day trip jam-packed with downhill skiing.  Mike had never really skied at all before, but had snowboarded at a few local northern Michigan resorts.  I had not been downhill since at least high school. Needless to say, we didn't have any gear, or expectations. We just wanted to spend a few fun days on the snow before cross country ski season kicked into high gear at the first of the year.  By skiing this early in the season, we were able to avoid the crowds, and ski a lot of fresh snow.  We really enjoyed such a fun trip with family, and were sad to see it end so soon.

(The view from our walk on our day off)

 After our "last day" of skiing we went back to Megan's house, realized our early morning flight was cancelled due to weather, and we now had two more days to enjoy the mountains!  By the time we made our way back to Michigan we had experienced all four of the Cottonwoods ski resorts- Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, and Solitude.  Having the opportunity to hit all four we definitely had to do a ranking.  The group was pretty much in consensus, although we are all open to some more testing!

4. Snowbird

(Mike at the top)

For our first day in Utah, we chose Snowbird, mainly because the lift to the top of the mountain was open, and Mike really wanted to snowboard at 11,000 feet.  Megan and Michael were both working and said this wasn't their favorite resort, so they didn't mind that we went without them.  The rental fees were the highest of the whole week, and while it looked like it had some good easy runs for us to start on, anything that wasn't a black diamond (hard) just acted as a connector trail, instead of being fun to ski on it's own. Samantha and Alex didn't want to attempt anything too challenging as they found their ski legs, so they ended up having to bus around to different lifts to ski the different areas while avoiding the harder trails. For a more accomplished skier, this may be the place to go, but for us it just wasn't great.

The weather deteriorated throughout the day, and for our last run Mike and I finally got the nerve to head to the top of the mountain for the lone blue (intermediate) intermediate run that went all the way down, and we were so nervous we would miss the signs due to low visibility and have to scale down a cliff that we couldn't even enjoy it until the bottom half of the mountain where we had been skiing all day.

 If we had come later in the week, and on a day with better weather we may have enjoyed it more.  I don't know if we will try this one again, but it definitely seemed to be the biggest hit with the people back home who have been to Salt Lake City to ski.



3. Solitude

Solitude was our "bonus" ski day.  Megan and Michael were again at work, but had said this resort was fun although not their favorite.  Having three days of skiing under our belt, and a rest day the day before (we were skiing 5 hours a day, and with no prior skiing that puts some wear on the legs!), we were confident in trying this new hill.

The weather was probably the nicest of our trip, but we found Solitude had groomed almost all of the runs, which just isn't as fun as the powder we had been skiing at the other resorts.  Most of the trails here were in the wide open and straight down, so they weren't as pretty.  Because all of the runs went straight down the hill they were hard- mountains are steep!  Solitude also had the most moguls, which I like in short spurts, but it definitely made it challenging.

This area also seemed most prone to avalanche, with crews blowing out snow on some areas of the mountain, and other areas where snow had fallen down the mountain were almost bare, even with the four foot of base snow.  By waiting until the last day of our trip, they did open the top of the mountain, so Mike and I skied the long runs all day, and did have a lot of fun.  Samantha and Alex didn't enjoy this one so much because the skill jump between the green (easy) and blue runs made it hard to find something fun and challenging.

2. Alta

(The whole crew- Michael, Megan, Alex, Samantha, Rebecca, & Mike)

Alta was our only weekend ski day, and we saved it for Michael and Megan since this was their favorite resort.  Alta is a skier-only hill, so Mike had to try skiing for basically the first time ever.  Needless to say, he was a natural.   This resort was really neat because it had some-gasp- uphill sections that you didn't have to work to go over but broke your speed up a little bit between faster down hill sections.  The weather was basically a blizzard, but we had tons of fresh powder to play in. This area had 3 lifts that went above 10,000 feet, so there were a lot of long runs down the mountains at a lot of different ability levels.

 Mike and I tried a few black diamond sections here, and we didn't crash too many times.  We liked the mogul sections with the powder, although the visibility made them a little tricky at times.  Samantha and Alex  found some easier trails that went through the woods and reminded us of cross country trails back home.  Even the easiest runs were fun to ski, and had side areas where you could practice moguls and jumps.

The funniest thing that happened all day was Mike taking a jump and falling into a three foot deep hole of unpacked snow, losing his skis in the powder.  He did find them, but not before giving the rest of us a serious case of the giggles.

1. Brighton

After skiing Snowbird the first day, we were ready to ski somewhere a little easier with a more relaxed feel.  Megan suggested Brighton as a resort she had only skied once, but really enjoyed.  Everything at Brighton felt like a locals place; cheaper rentals, a relatively unassuming lodge, and more of what I would call "ski bums" on the mountain.  Mike snowboarded again on this day, and was really starting to get good.  Brighton had a lot of trails through the woods at all ability levels, which everyone really enjoyed.  There were also small sections of black diamond runs that you could try off of the easy trails, so all five of us could enjoy skiing together while challenging ourselves individually.  Each lift had at least one blue run down off of it, so all of us went to the top of the mountain and had fun skiing down.

We had a perfect amount of fresh powder, and very few trails were groomed.  It was fun skiing the mogul runs and picking up speed without being terrified of an icy crash.  Alex and Samantha loved an easy run through the woods that also had some small off-shoots with jumps.  Even though some of the other mountains were higher, the flow of the trails allowed Mike and I to ski nearly half an hour without having to get back on a chairlift.  Brighton was also home to our favorite individual trail sections. We skied until the lifts closed and we can't wait to go back for more.

Cover Crops

(The 14 plant mix of cover crops in front of the Pine Ridge Farm)

This fall, we did something a little different after harvesting our wheat acres, which was putting in a cover crop.  What is a cover crop?  It is a second crop put in towards the end of the growing season to provide ground cover, hold nutrients in the soil, increase organic matter, and reduce compaction.  All of these things should help our primary crop production in the coming years. 

(Look closely and you will see a be on the sunflower)

These all sound like really great things, so implementing a cover crop program seems like it would be easy, obvious, and immediately cost effective, but that isn't the case.  One obstacle is figuring out how to get the crop into the field, and to come up for a good cover before everything freezes up.  Wheat is harvested at the end of June, so we have plenty of time to haul manure and plant the crop before the ground freezes. It is a good place for us to start and see if it works before we start incorporating it into our other crop programs.  We are not quite done harvesting corn for this year, so to put a cover crop into the corn field we would have to fly it on  sometime in August/September.   

(14 plant mix cover crop in September at the Brigham Farm)

Of course we also have to know what to plant.  There are limitless possibilities of what to put in a cover crop mix based on the desired outcomes, climate, etc.  This year we are trying two mixes.  The first is a mix of 14 different varieties, some each of legumes, grasses, brassicas (root vegetables), and broadleaves.  Of course the stars of the show at least visually are the sunflowers, which are covered in bees and butterflies.  The other mix is 2 varieties- oats and tillage radishes- less expensive and less showy, but should get the job done.   

(It's hard to tell how tall the crops are until you are walking around in them)

All of these plants are supposed to winter kill (die off with the frost) but the grasses and roots will hold the nutrients in and keep the ground covered until they fully break down in the spring.  This should give us better nutrient availability from the manure we put on before planting, and better soil to plant into that will hold more moisture through the summer.  If everything goes as it is supposed to, we won't even have to till into the fields in the spring before planting, although right now that seems hard to believe with how tall and hardy our cover crop looks to be.  

 (View of the ground coverage... and a turnip!)

When we tried a cover crop in the past, we had just planted tillage radishes and they were giant (3 feet long and 4-6 inches in diameter), stunk as they decomposed, and we couldn't see any measurable benefit from having them in the field.  That being said, we may have had a yield boost that was subtle, so we aren't quite sure.  This year we worked with some people experienced with cover crops to choose our mixes and planting dates more carefully.  We also planted in a few different fields that aren't our top performers to see if we can make any improvements.  We won't know until next fall how the crops fair, but right now everyone is excited about the potential for improvement and learning new farming practices.

 (Brian displaying our tillage radishes- much smaller than last time!)

PRRS Update: A Year in Review

(Fall morning on the farm- on the right side in the distance you can just make out the hog huts.)

Over the past six months, we have had made big strides in recovery from our PRRS outbreak.  All four of our farrowing farms have been producing PRRS negative (it's a good thing to be negative!) piglets for roughly 4 months now.  This means we have decreased our use of antibiotics to treat secondary infections that arise when the pigs immune systems are compromised from the primary disease.  It's great to see healthy piglets and sows again, and our production through the summer seemed to be better than ever through the summer.  This caused the problem of having too many pigs and not enough space to grow them. We were moving and selling pigs lighter than we usually do, but after the last year it didn't seem like a bad problem to have.  We have continued to vaccinate our sows every 3 months for PRRS with a different vaccine or serum each time, so our strain is less likely to mutate into a new strain and cause massive losses again.

Since we have negative piglets being born, you would think that everything is healthy and disease free, but that is not yet the case.  When recovering from this type of disease, everything is done in stages. With the farrowing farms appearing to be clean and stable we now have to empty and clean all of our nurseries, and then all of our finishers.  Right now we are working through each nursery, getting it completely empty, washing, and then letting it sit empty for a few days before loading with new pigs.  Prior to all of the farrowing farms producing negative pigs, we had to mix sick pigs with clean ones, so the clean ones would also get sick.  It wasn't something we wanted to do, but there weren't many options.  Once we had all negative pigs coming to the nurseries, the older pigs in the nursery would spread the sickness to the younger ones who hadn't been exposed and cause more loss.  By emptying and cleaning each barn, we hope to break the cycle.

Another problem that has developed in the finishers are an outbreak of Circo Virus.  Since our older pigs have a compromised immune system, they are susecptible to secondary infection.  Circo Virus is a disease that has been present in our herd for a number of years, but is usually controlled by a vaccine we give to pigs just before they are weaned.  This would be similar to how the measles or chicken pox are now controlled in the human population.  Now we think we are seeing the Circo flare-up due to PRRS immune suppression, so we are giving a booster shot of Circo vaccine to pigs   before they leave the nursery.  We just started this last week, so we are vaccinating a lot of pigs in a short period of time, trying to save them from sickness as they get older.  Once the Circo Virus develops clinical signs, there isn't a whole lot we can do to help the pigs, so vaccination is the best we can do to raise a healthy herd.

At this point, the pigs are recovering better than expected by our vet, even though it feels slow to all of us on the farm.  We have had setbacks due to secondary infection, but as of yet we haven't seen any re-break from PRRS, and if we can keep it that way we will continue to work towards becoming PRRS naive once again.  The difference between negative and naive is that when we have a negative herd we will still vaccinate for the PRRS virus, but once we go naive we will stop vaccinations and see if the pigs stay disease free.  Not only does this save us money, but it will also mean we have eliminated the virus from our herd, as small pox has been eliminated from human populations. Anytime you can eliminate a deadly disease it is a victory.  

Farm Update: Planting Season

Hello all, things are back to busy as usual on the farm.  We have started field work for the spring!  So far we have done our tillage, manure hauling and started on the planting.  Our early field work was delayed by a cold spring, so we were more anxious than usual to get things rolling, but we have caught up now, and are moving strong.  The unfortunate thing about catching up means that it hasn't rained much lately, which is leaving our ground moisture lower than it normally is for the spring.  This could hurt things later on, but we will just have to wait and see.

(Hauling Manure)

After a hard winter, we are starting to come out of PRRS.  Our farrowing farms (the ones where the babies are born) are running well again, with the sows finally staying bred.  We didn't know when this would happen, so for a little while we have more baby pigs that usual.  That's not a bad thing after such a low time, but it takes more management to keep the pigs on their moms as long as possible, while creating space for new litters to be born.  In our nurseries and finishers, we aren't losing too many pigs, although it is still a little higher than we normally see.  The main difference in these pigs is that they don't grow as nice and even as they did before our outbreak.  This leads to challenges in adjusting the ventilation, water, and feed to fit a large range of pig needs in each group, where usually the pigs in a group are pretty uniform and ready for the same stage at the same time.

Good news moving forward is the piglets being born are consistently born negative for PRRS, which means our sows (mom pigs) are no longer actively shedding virus.  Since we have the sows in stable condition, we are moving to phase two of PRRS clean-up.  This second phase is to get the pigs going into our nurseries (21 days old) to be negative once they are off of mom.  As of our last test some pigs are and some aren't, so the positive pigs infect their peers when they are all grouped together, causing the virus to keep circulating.  We think this is happening because we sometimes mix older pigs and younger pigs in the farrowing house, in order to help the slower growers or runts get a better start.  We also "foster" pigs that can cause spread of the virus: fostering is taking babies off of a sow that has too many (maybe 17 babies, but only 12 working nipples) and put them on a sow who didn't have very many (maybe only 5, but has 12 working nipples).  This way all of the pigs have a better chance for survival, and the sow with only a few pigs produces more milk, which will help her to raise her next litter.

With phase two of PRRS clean-up we will keep all pigs that are born in the same week together, no late fostering (we still can foster within the first day or two after birth), and no holding runts back in the farrowing house.  We will dedicate nursery space specifically for the smallest pigs, so they get more intensive care (this part is usually handled at the farrowing farm instead of at the nursery).  We will also make sure to disinfect everything we use in the farrowing house between litters, where usually we disinfect each day.  This should stop the spread of the virus between little pigs within 3-4 months, baring a re-break of the sows.  It will be a lot of extra work, but it is worth it to get healthy pigs.  If we can successfully make it through phase two, we can start to work towards getting our herd PRRS naive, which is no virus on the farm anywhere.  We still have a long way to go, but things are looking up!

The "Other" Canoe Marathon

The Devizes to Westiminster Canoe Race (DW) is a 125 mile race in the UK, where teams race non-stop over 77 portages, down a canal, a river, and onto the tidal section of the Thames.  The race is run as a time trial, with each team picking their start time based on when they will hit the tide 17 miles before the finish line. Below is the story of our adventure.

Mike and I decided to do the DW about 1 year before we made it to the starting line.  We met four British paddlers, James Prowse, Shirine Voller, Mike Thornton, and Mark Peterson, at a training camp in Florida in March 2015.  After learning about the DW, we decided it was something we would have to do.  Looking ahead to 2016, Easter weekend was in March, which fit perfectly into our already full Marathon Canoe Racing Schedule.  We would have two months to recover between the DW and our next long race.  Once we decided to race, it was all about figuring out how to get there and make the most of our trip.

We spent some time talking to our American friends who had done the race before, gleaning any information we could.  Neil Weisner-Hanks told us to really practice the portages,and Mike Vincent told us to take a good light and do a time trial upon arrival in the UK in order to figure out our start time.  Mike and I both paddle quite a bit year round, but Michigan winters suit nordic skiing much better than paddling, so we did our usual ski program all winter, hoping that the conditioning would serve us well.  We were a little concerned about the boat stability, since we had never even paddled a Wenonah Mach 1 before. My dad has an ICF C-2 we could practice in, but it wasn't stable enough to use all winter, and definitely didn't sound stable enough to race for 20 hours. Finally, we were able to track down a Wenonah in Michigan to try for a day, and that settled our fears about boat stability, now we had to find one to race!

Neil helped us get into contact with Richard Bennett, from the Canoe and Kayak Store, and he graciously offered to loan us a boat for the race.  The biggest questions about our race had been resolved, so we bought our tickets and contacted, James, Shirine, and Mike to let them know we were going to make the race.  They had already decided to be the core of our support crew, and with the addition of Sue Prowse, Laura Thornton, and Alan Farrance, we were in the best care.

We arrived in London the Friday before the race and immediately drove to pick up our canoe from Richard. Upon arriving at the Canoe and Kayak Store, we found a brand new boat waiting for us!  This was far more than we were expecting, and we were nervous to put the first scratch on it, something that would be inevitable during a 125 mile canoe race.  Another concern was getting the boat set up for Mike  (6'3" and solidly built) and I (5'5" and girlish) with a 50 lb.+ weight difference.  Mike always paddles the bow, and I always paddle the stern, so switching ends to make the boat work for our weight difference wasn't really an option. We decided to move the stern seat back about 10 inches, which allowed us to finally get stern heavy, a must for such a long race.

The week before the race involved getting the boat set up, scouting the course, and learning how to portage. Nick Prowse and Alan took time out of their days to shuttle us around the Thames River and the Kennet-Avon Canal in order to help us prepare. After scouting about 35 miles of the course, we realized we weren't going to remember most of the portages, and would just have think on our feet.  James, Mike, and Shirine would paddle with us and gave us pointers on strategy and portaging.  We got fast enough to almost stay with them on the take outs and put-ins, but we were worried that having to get in and out so many times would really wear on us.  Mike and I decided we would run all of the portages that were close together, instead of getting in and out multiple times.  In a meeting with our support crew, we made the decision to set our projected pace just ahead of the canoe record.  It looked like the wind and rain was going to be against us so we didn't know if we would be able to hold the pace, but it gave us the opportunity to do it.

When we finally got to race day, we were so excited to get started.  Neither one of us had done a C-2 time trial race before, so we didn't know how we should feel before the start.  We decided to prepare like any other long race, and warm up by running for 10 minutes.  After we felt loosened up we got our tracker and took off.

Unlike most of the other teams in the race, we were looking forward to the longer stretches with no portages.  The first 14 miles flew by, and even though it was windy and rainy, we knew that we were moving well.  Both of us were surprised at the number of teams we caught before the first portage and by the number of canal boats that were travelling in the rain.  In the first hour, our support crew told us that we were already 5 minutes ahead of our goal pace.  We relaxed knowing that we would need that time on the portages.

Hitting the first portage, we were ready to get into the meat of the race.  We started off trying to run hard, and then realized there was too much mud.  We couldn't get any traction, and fought hard to stay on our feet. The second and third locks were close, so we ran them as one portage.  It was awful.  The run felt long, hard, and unsustainable.  I didn't worry about how long we had to paddle, but I felt how daunting the portages could really be.  Upon getting back in the boat, Mike and I agreed we would paddle between every lock, no matter how short the run to save energy.  When we hit the Crofton flight, we came in with a kayak that decided to run all seven portages.  They could run faster than us, but the towpath was so muddy that we were able to gain by paddling.

Once we hit Newbury we knew that the portages would be less often and we felt that we had past the most difficult part of the course.  We had a few bad portages at dusk before figuring out what setting to run our light on, but most of this part of the race was uneventful.  It seemed like in no time at all we were in Reading, and the rain had finally stopped! We decided to stop at Dreadnought and change into warm dry clothes, making us feel even better, and found out that we were still a few minutes ahead of our projected pace.  Getting on the Thames felt more like paddling at home, and we had fun looking for the next portage ahead.

After another 10 portages, we started to feel the distance.  Our paddling muscles hurt, and our hands were sore from carrying the boat.  We shouldered the boat on the rest of the portages.  About at this point we started catching a lot of teams.  This was encouraging on the water, but it made the portaging really slow.  We had to wait sometimes a few minutes to put in.  On top of our fatigue we felt that the record was beginning to get out of reach.  Our crew kept cheering us on, encouraging us to keep pushing.  When we got to Teddington, we could feel the sun would be coming up soon.  Our crew was there to tell us that we hit the portage 2 minutes ahead of schedule- about 7 minutes ahead of the record!  We also learned that there were only 10 boats ahead of us, and they challenged us to cross the finish line first.

Even through all of the pain, we were able to rally and push hard by the first 3 teams.  It started to look like a city, and we were looking for the London Eye, even though it was still early.  Our support lined up on the side, cheering and telling us "only an hour to the finish!" and "you are still on pace to break the record!".  The last hour is always the hardest mentally, and we rounded a corner into a tough headwind.  The waves started to build the finish felt a million miles away.  Fortunately, it was only the one straightaway that had such a tough wind and we had made it through.  We had ground up all the way up to the 4th finishing team, and made a pass.  They were a fast kayak and were hanging on to our wave.   We really decided to push, and finally saw the London Eye.  Our support team was standing upstream of the bridge, shouting that we were going to smash the record.  It was then a sprint for the bridge and past the finish line.  We crossed the line 4th, in a time of 18 hours, 23 minutes, and 48 seconds, good for the record, first C2, and 3rd place overall.  Walking up the steps was euphoric.  Sue directed Mike and I to stand in front of Big Ben for our finish picture. We came to realize later that she posted a video on Facebook waiting at the finish line, explaining that if we crossed the line before Big Ben showed ten past seven we would have the record.  Our finish line picture shows Big Ben at seven o'clock.

We were able to enjoy our last days in the UK by celebrating our great finish and Mike's birthday. It was a whirlwind week we will never forget, and we can't wait to head back and try it all again.   The race was fantastic, and the people were even better.  

Transparency, Activism, and Problem Solving

(On the farm- an 1830's barn, a hog house, and a new barn across the road)

Next week, I am going to speak at the Tri-State Sow Housing Conference.  I am to be on a panel of producers speaking on the transition to group housing, you can read about our farm moving pigs inside from outside pastures in many of my previous posts.  I am pretty sure my experiences will be unique on the panel, since the other producers are transitioning from stalled systems.  It's exciting to meet with other farmers and hear about their challenges and innovations in our new systems.

Today I was informed that some animal activist groups have registered members for the conference.  In an effort for transparency, the conference has decided to welcome them, and address any questions they have, while trying to keep things civil between the parties.  I know that the panel I am speaking on may be a point of interest for for the activists, so I am fully aware that that I may be faced with some tough ethical questions.  I have been in those situations before, and while it is hard, I feel like I can present myself and my industry as caring and responsible.

That being said, I am afraid.  I am scared of what one person's bad experience with agriculture can do to my family, my community. Someday, something I write may cause somebody to find my farm and try to ruin what we have worked so hard to build. One video, one accusation, (even if it is unfounded) is enough to bring the farm to a screeching halt. Once somebody puts something bad out about the farm, it spreads like a disease. If I am doing something wrong, I absolutely want to be made aware, and I want to fix it.  I don't even care about people knowing that I messed up.  However, I don't want to be accused of not caring for the animals.  I know there are things that can be improved on the farm, but I am doing the best I can with the information I have.  I hold my coworkers to the standards set in place by our vets, packers, Pork Board, audits, and consumers.  I fill out the necessary documentation.  I can't promise that nothing bad has ever happened on the farm, but I can say with full confidence that everyday we become better at raising pigs.  Part of getting better is learning from past mistakes.  I am in no way saying we tolerate abuse, but what we know to be abuse now was not considered as such 25 years ago.  We listened, learned, and changed our practices; we will continue to change.

People in the United States are entitled to their own beliefs, and can make choices on the goods and services they purchase based on any parameters they choose.  I am not offended by people who follow their convictions even if I don't agree with them.  I write about my experiences- not trying to be right or wrong, but to explain my perspective.  I want to listen to what others have to say about production agriculture and learn from our conversations.  The people who push you to grow aren't those that put you down, but those that challenge you to aim higher.  I want to be part of the solution, and throwing around blame does not solve anything.  To really make agriculture better, we have to identify our problems and channel our energy towards fixing them.

 

PRRS Update- Month 3

For those who have been following our farm's journey through PRRS, we are slowly making progress (to catch up if you haven't, check out my earlier posts here and here.  Three months in from our initial diagnosis, we are starting to see all of the pigs being born looking better.  Production isn't back up to where it was before, but slowly we are making progress.

At this point we are moving forward with our disease management techniques.  First, we are giving all of the breeding herd a serum that is made from PRRS virus collected from our herd.  This is to reinvigorate their immunity towards the disease.  We will do this every 3-6 months until we decided to fully eliminate PRRS on the farm.  This strategy is a little bit of a different method for handling the disease; instead of using the commercial vaccine we have created our own serum that comes exactly from our PRRS mutation. Our vet believes this is a better strategy long term, since it should give us better immunity than a vaccine which may not work fully if our virus has mutated.

Last week we tested Green Valley, the first farm that broke with the disease, to see if we were getting PRRS negative piglets yet.  The good news is that we are!  We will test at least one more time and look for more negative results before deciding to try to eliminate the disease from those pigs long-term.  This will be tricky if our other farms are still positive, but we will cross that bridge when we get there. Next week we will have pigs tested for PRRS at River Ridge to see if they will also be negative.  We have heard that other farms are having trouble shaking this strain, so we realize we might have a few more positive tests before we can start clean up.

(beautiful spring-like day on the farm)

New Year, New Barn

Happy New Year!  Just before the new year, we had some big excitement on the farm... the new barn is up and running! After a year of planning, weather, and building, we have all of the pigs inside.   The move didn't come a moment too soon because when the hole for the barn was dug some of the outside heater lines for the waterers were severed, so with below freezing temperatures it would have been difficult to keep some of the pens from freezing up.

(Mandie moving the last of the pigs inside)

So far, the crew likes the new barn, although as with anything new we are still figuring out the quirks.  The pigs are much more comfortable around people, since they have more human interaction.  We are able to feed them better to their needs, since we look at the pigs everyday.  On our farm we don't often see skinny animals; more often its a problem of overfeeding, so having the pigs inside we can monitor their intake a little more, keeping them at a healthier weight.  The crew has also noticed that we find at-risk animals sooner, so we are better able to help them.  Hopefully, as we get used to the new set-up we can offer better care to all of the pigs on the farm, including the newborn piglets who should get more attention when we aren't moving groups of pigs a mile or two per day.  

For anyone who is curious:  the "paint" on the pigs is a livestock marker, which is water based.  We put it on the pigs when we need to identify a group specifically.  In this case, the green pigs are bred to Landrace boars, and the pink pigs are bred to Large White boars.  It is painless identification for the pig, and a good visual for the people.   

With the last four months being pretty tough around here, we are excited to get something positive going for us.  It's a good start to 2016.