Farm Update: Meet Wilfred

Another busy week on the farm as the weather warms up!  This week, we were able to see how the new barn hole would function as a swimming pool.  On the bright side, we received 2 1/2 inches of much needed rain, and the first wall of the barn foundation is up.

(Flooding in the floor of the new barn)

We also have corn planting well underway.  Our field crew was able to get over 3/4 of the corn planted before the rain, so we are in good shape.  The soybeans are also being planted.  The rain definitely slows things down, but it gives us time to do some need maintenance on the planting equipment.  

In other news, the first of our breeding stock purchases for the summer arrived at our "isolation barn."  In everyday terms, we bought some boars, and put them in one of the oldest barns on the farm.  Don't let old fool you for poor, they are hand-fed twice daily, have heated water, indoor and outdoor spaces, as well as straw bedding for the chilly spring nights.  

We isolate the new boars in order to check their disease status, while adjusting them to the disease profile of our own pigs.  For example, if these new boars had something like the flu, we would want to know before we brought them into our flu-free barns, and if we had chicken pox, we would want to make sure they didn't get really sick when they first move into the main barn.   Every few days we will bring something from the main barn to the isolation barn to help prepare the immune systems of the new boars for the environment they are going into.  It also gives the boars a chance to shake any bugs they picked up during travel.  Boars stay in isolation for just over a month, and then are moved to the main barn and enter the breeding herd.  

This particular set of boars is Landrace in breed, you can tell by the long bodies, and large, floppy ears.  We have four new boars and each will be named before he goes into the main barn.  Sometimes we name have names picked out before they arrive, and other times the names just come to us as they are unloaded.  Aunt Sandy decided that one of the new boars is definitely a Wilfred, so only three more names to pick out.  

(New Landrace boars- Wilfred not pictured, he is camera shy)