Midwest Pork Conference- 3 ways to get Piglets off to a Good Start

One of the best things about the Midwest Pork Conference is that the topics are always timely, and the speakers give action points that we can take home and use the next day on the farm.  Most of the time the tips aren't groundbreaking, but it gets us back to basics and really focusing on how to set the pigs up for success.  One of the best seminars from the Conference was on caring for pigs after weaning.

Weaning is one of the first major stressors (after birth) in a little pig's life.  Separation from mom, a new house, figuring out eating solid food, and drinking water are big learning experiences.  Anything we can do as caretakers to ease the process will help the pigs get off to a good start.  If we did our best to have healthy, well cared for pigs pre-weaning it helps a lot, but there are still some tips and tricks that will get the pigs started off right.

1. Keep it clean!

Having a clean, warm, and dry pen for the pigs to be weaned into reduces the risk for disease to develop and spread.  Between groups of wean pigs, we make sure to wash and disinfect every surface- from the floor to the ceiling- then allow them to dry overnight.  Rooms are heated to approximately 84 degrees, so it's nice and cozy for the little ones coming in.  When checking barns each day, we start with the youngest and move to the oldest.  This is to keep the little pigs safe from anything that might be going around in the older pigs.  Just like people, pigs will get the flu, or a cold, but the older they are when they get it, the less problems they will face.

2. Make Water easy to Find

While little pigs are on the sow, they have water available, but if everything is going good with mom they may not ever use it.  This means when the pigs are weaned they have to figure out a new drinking system- either out of a nipple, bowl, or pan.  We train the pigs to drink a few different ways, depending on what type of system is in place in the barn. 

For our older barns, there are water nipples with bowls underneath them.  We loosen the nipples so they leak into the bowls, and the pigs will drink from the bowls the first few days.  After a few days, they find the nipples, train themselves how to use them, and we can stop the leaking. This takes the caretaker observing how the pigs are doing and deciding when they are trained well enough to drink out of the nipples.  In our newer barns we have shallow, gravity-fed pans that fill with a fresh supply of water constantly.  These are easy for the pigs to find, and they pretty much manage themselves.  Of course, all systems have to be monitored, but it seems like the little pigs figure this out pretty fast.

3. Transition from Milk to Dry Feed

For the early part of a pig's life, all nutrition comes from mother's milk.  Over that time, the pigs grow and change rapidly.  Their guts begin to develop for solid food, and if left on mom long enough they will start to get a scour (diarrhea) from not having solid food available to eat.  The start of transitioning pigs to solid food begins while the piglet is still in its litter.  For the week before weaning, we provide a little bit of solid feed to the pigs each day.  This allows them to get used to the sight, smell, and taste of the solid food they will be eating after weaning. 

Once weaned, we make sure the feeders are full of this rich, yummy- smelling feed.  The pigs probably recognize it as something familiar from pre-weaning, and usually will go to it within the first day- which is pretty fast considering how much stress they have been under.  For the smaller pigs that might not be so sure, we can feed them on a rubber mat.  On the mat we may mix the feed with an electrolyte gel (think Pedialyte in "Gu" form) to give them an extra boost, since the piglets that avoid feed are probably also the ones that have a slow start on drinking, too.  We will only do this for a couple of days, and then transition to the feeder.

By doing these 3 things we minimize stress, begin to transition the gut, and provide a healthy environment for the young piglets.  Next week, we will look at the hot-button issue of reducing antibiotic use on farms.  For some background information, check my posts on How we work with our Vets, Manage Herd Health, and as an industry Manage Antibiotic Use.

 

Ditch the Rule, but not the Reward

If you follow any type of farming publication, or ag social media you can see the #DitchtheRule campaign out in full swing.  If you haven't been following, #DitchtheRule is the push by the agricultural community to stop the EPA's change to the definition of the Waters of the United States.  The proposed changes  would make man-made ditches (even those that do not flow most of the year), wetlands, any pond area (even private half acre ponds, or small field ponds), drains and tiling all navigable, thus putting them in the EPA's jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.  By having this federal control of the water, farmers applying fertilizers and pesticides to adjacent lands may have to seek additional permits, or may not be able to use these products at all.  It also could make problems for farmers wishing to plant additional acreage that is not currently used for agriculture.  Overall, this seems to be an overreach of the EPA's control in commerce and of privately held property.

I am very wary of any federal agency taking claim to property owned privately.  I don't agree that more regulation will help the process of commerce, nor that it is the best way to keep the waterways clean.   I do think it gives us a chance to review what we are doing privately to protect the water, and what programs are out there for us to educate, promote, and support water and agriculture.

As a farmer, I can take a look at my nutrient management plan.  I can see what I am applying to the fields, use the proper amounts, and see if I am having my desired effect.  When looking at these things, I need to realize that anything flowing into the "little ditch by the road" will eventually make it into bigger water.  Using buffer strips, cover crops, crop rotation, and other soil conservation practices are things that I can do to reduce the chances of run-off.  Applying manure and fertilizers at the right time in relation to rain, plant maturity, and incorporation will make them more effective and less likely to end up in our waters.  I also need to respect the wetlands as nature's filter for our waters.  That 2 acre wetland may have me itching to farm it, but it really does a lot of the dirty work for my farm.  These techniques are being used by farmers, but there is always room to improve.

In Michigan, our water is a big deal, and we have many organizations to help us keep the water clean.  We have a great relationship with NRCS(Natural Resource Conservation Service), an active Michigan Department of Argriculture and Rural Development (MARD), and farmer-fair Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). On a more local level, we have watershed organizations that seek to educate farmers, and the general public on how to clean or better maintain our waterways. We also have a great voluntary environmental farm certification, titled MAEAP (Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program).  In this program, farms undergo audits in different areas of crop, livestock, and farmstead management and receive recommendations to reduce our environmental impact.  After making the updates, farms are visited again, and if it meet the standards of environmental stewardship, it will become a MAEAP verified location for the next few years.  Thousands of farms in Michigan have undergone this process.

As we move forward in the discussion about our waters, we need to realize that while this rule may not pass, the call for water conservation will not.  Farmers are stewards of the land, and due to our
use of the land we will have to take responsibility for our waters as well.  This isn't something to be taken lightly, but it does give us a chance to show our role as front-line environmentalists.  By showing additional care to our water, we will reap the rewards of good stewardship, keeping our farms and our communities running clean and strong.

What's in a Crop Farmer's Toolbox?

I read a lot of articles about how farmers misuse GM technology, and how we are not really paying attention to how this affects the land, air and water. That as farmers, we are just using the cheapest, and easiest method, and not paying attention to other opportunities that are out there for better our crops and farmland.  Taking one step into the Farm Journal's Corn College last week, I quickly realized that people don't see the other farming practices we implement to raise a better crop.  GM technology is one of many tools in our toolbox, but what else is out there?

Let's start with hybrids.  These aren't necessarily GMOs, in that they are bred in the field to make certain traits.  There are those which are drought resistant, heat resistant, flood resistant, short growing season, long growing season, and everything in between.  As farmers, we don't just pick one variety to plant in all of our fields, we diversify our crop based on soil type, drainage, micro-nutrient levels, presence of irrigation, equipment, tillage style, and a host of other factors.  We try to balance our cropping portfolio so that no matter what the growing conditions, we can have a good crop.

Now we can talk tillage practices.  Farmers have a huge variety of field implements to use when tilling their fields.  Some farmers are strictly no-till, which is planting into ground that hasn't been cultivated in any way.  This is good for soil erosion because the ground is always covered with some type of cover.  Some farmers use plows or rippers to break hard pans in the soil and to inject manure for a natural fertilizer. Vertical tillage is somewhere in between, helping to create soil uniformity, thus better space for roots to grow.  We try to minimize our passes over the field by doing multiple things at once, making us more efficient on fuel, and less likely to cause compaction.

We use soil testing to figure out our nutrient levels to make sure that we put the right fertilizers in the right places.  We balance our soil and water pH levels to make the growing conditions suitable for the plants.  We use crop rotation and cover crops to improve the soil content, minimize weeds in the off seasons, and increase the organic matter.

Farm equipment now allows us to collect data and use GPS to practice precision farming.  We can map a field based on yield, and soil type to plant different varieties in places that respond differently within the same field.  We can manage our fertilizers that way too, so we are using less and growing more. Even the number of seeds we plant per acre is adjusted based on this mapping, giving each seed a better chance to thrive, and only planting as many seeds as the ground can adequately provide for throughout the growing season. 

Even more basic farming tools are being honed every time we go out in the field.  Did you know that the soil temperature at the time of planting greatly effects the ability for the seed to take up nutrients?  By monitoring our soil temperatures, we can give the plants the best start that we can, and utilize the fertilizer that is already in the ground.  In addition, we can adjust our planting equipment to make sure our planting depths are consistent, so one plant doesn't dominate another.

GMOs are part of the farmer's toolbox, but they don't make up for cutting corners in crop production.  Not every farm is using each tool, but each farm is trying to put together the best mix of tools to utilize the land at the highest potential.  

Conservation Compromise

Last night I went out for dinner with my family and a good friend, Matt.  He isn't someone most farmers like to share dinner with, let alone call a friend, but I feel lucky to know him.  He works for Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) as a watershed conservationist.  Many farmers have a hard people who work in these positions, and we think that they are trying to take away land that we own, and that they don't understand the position of farmers.  In many cases this may be true, but Matt and I have some of the most thoughtful and exciting conversations about the future of agriculture, since with have different perspectives, but see the value in the land.

One point he brings to me about his job is that he is working towards getting people to realize the importance  of the wetlands.  The filter sediment, rejuvenates the soil, and generally make the water we have better.  They are things that whether or not we want to admit it, are good for the longevity of farming.  The point he brings to farmers is, that by protecting the wetlands, he is protecting the future value of the land for farming.  

With that in mind we talked about regulation.  As the conversation continued, I wondered whether we need a certain amount of regulation to protect us from our own best intentions.  For example, I want to plant the best crops I can, and have the best yields possible, year after year.  I would like to think that someday, my children will get to do the same thing if they so choose.  I know that I need the land to be in top condition each year, and that I need to do everything in my power to keep it that way for the next season.  In a way, some regulation on water quality, air quality, and soil conservation helps me to do that.  It makes me not only accountable to myself, but also my neighbors, cities, states, and nation.  It also allows me to record how well I am taking care of my land from year to year.  While many may find this to be a violation of rights, every time I drive downtown Detroit by the old automobile manufacturing plants, I am glad they can no longer dump sewer water straight into the river, or emit big clouds of black smoke.  They are more accountable for the waste they produce than the whole field of agriculture is; not that we are doing it wrong, but why not be accountable for what we do?  We need to have guiding principles to the care of our resources, and we need to make sure that we are part of the discussion when the principles are being made.

As we talked, Matt reminded me that with any adoption of environmental reform, we need to make sure our food production systems are protected by some kind of trade barrier. He doesn't believe that throwing farmers under the bus will do the country or the land any favors.  We need to maintain some type of self-sufficiency, and sometimes protecting our natural resources comes at a price.  However, once we have lost them, natural resources won't come back, so we need to if future longevity is worth some sacrifice now.  We need to see that conservationists and agriculturalists are working towards the same goal of protecting our land while producing from it.    

Adaptive Ag

Last night was my local Farm Bureau Annual Meeting.  We had the usual delicious food, door prizes, and of course the usual speakers from different levels and committees of the organization.  The information they bring to meetings is sometimes reflective, other times forward looking, but generally it gives an idea to the types of problems farmers across the county, state, and country are facing.

Most of the reports focused on what we accomplished in the past year, but one speaker brought up the downfall of a completely grass roots organization: reaction type is fast enough in the current political climate.  In Michigan, the executive and legislative branches are run by the same political party.  Resolutions involving farm legislation are being passed so quickly and easily, that items which couldn't be issues last year are now being voting upon, and Farm Bureau is not able to change its endorsement or in some cases even place an endorsement in the first place because there is nothing referencing it in the Farm Bureau policy booklet.

This is a real problem, because our organization isn't as flexible or reactive as it should be in order to come to the table for big discussions.  However, we are hearing a complaint that tells us our legislature is listening to us, and they want more!  The candidates the Farm Bureau and farmers are supporting really want the input of agriculture, and are thinking about our businesses.  Our collective voice is important and it is desired.  We have an audience; a powerful one at that.

Another speaker referred to looking in unorthodox places for Allies in regulations in agriculture.  In California, farmers and union members band together because they both value the freedom to make decisions about their industries.  In New York, farmers and self proclaimed environmentalists have worked together against some of the HSUS policies they see as unfair, or misinformed.  As a whole, agriculture has to make an effort to listen, ask questions, and find the common ground.  It is out there and we can find it, as long as we can put aside our preconceived notions of the other person's views.    

Excited for Ingenuity

While browsing through some articles of Ag News today I found this amazing story of a resourceful farm in Maine.  These types of things really make me proud of what I do, who my peers are, and what we can accomplish.

The article, Exeter farm uses poop to produce energy (very exciting name, I know)  goes into how a dairy farm in Maine has these "mixture vessels"  where they pump ALL the waste from the farm and then it produces gas, working a generator.  The farm only uses about 5% of the energy it produces, selling the rest to the electrical company.  Now that is some golden opportunity!

Not everyone can use this kind of system, and there may be something better out there.  The initial cost of the tanks is expensive, and I can't imagine its as easy as plugging filling the tanks with waste and letting it go, but it is possible to make improvements. 

We should be proud of the efficiency we are able to achieve.  By having people out there who are willing to take risks, we figure out how far we can go.  As producers, this is the type of thing we are capable of, and it is what we should expect from ourselves.

One theme I have stressed in many posts is representing farming to the consumers.  Recently, I have found a contest put on by the United States Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) called Faces of Farming and Ranching, which provides a great opportunity for us to gain access to the consumers, and take a prominent position in the dialogue.  The contest requires an entry form and a short video for entry, and allows us to really focus on why we do what we do.  Check out the other areas of the Food Dialogues website, as it is very insightful, particularly if you haven't had a chance to check it out before.

The New Farmer

I've been reading a lot lately about the new generation coming into the world of agriculture.  We tend to be more tech savvy, educated,  highly motivated, and low in resources.  Some new farmers have little or no farm background, but want to make a difference in the way we produce food.  We are more open to change, and are optimistic about the adversity we will face.  We realize that we have to work with the older generation and with our opponents, bridging the gap to create a system that we all can live with. 

Many of the older generation see the recent public interest in food production as a nuisance, a sort of snooping.  People want to have an input on things they don't really understand or know about.  They are influencing policy, but are not spending the time to do the research.  There are some farmers who just want to turn their heads the other way and keep working the land, raising the animals the same way they have done for a number of years.

We don't have that option any more, and we don't need it.  As an industry, we are lucky to have direct consumer feedback.  We provide a product, and people are looking for service.  They want to have input towards the process.  Any business manager wants to know that their product is satisfying the consumer needs, finding the areas where they could make improvement. We need to take the feedback and run with it.  Even though many are resistant, we can produce food however people want us to, but they have to realize that their is a cost.  That's why most farmers are afraid to make the jump to meet consumer demands.  For any young farmers willing to make changes, it will take small steps and steady work the ultimate goals of supporting family, while meeting consumer expectations.

Is Eating Meat Ethical?

Many of you have probably seen the New York Times essay contest about whether or not eating meat is ethical.  I clicked on the link, expecting most the essays to be written by people who were very far from agriculture, with strict anti-ag agendas and completely sworn off meat.  Instead, I found six well crafted essays from people who really care about their food.

As I read through the essays, I found the common theme to be eating meat is ethical, but the way we produce it is not.  Many people fear what we are doing to the land, more than what will happen to their bodies.  Most think that some of our technology is good and that advancement is important.  They fear the "factory farm."  Even the those essays written by farmers showed resistance against them.  I know that my farm would be considered sinister to these people, but it is and always will be family owned and operated.  Each decision we make is not only towards the bottom line, but also towards the welfare of the land, animals, and consumer. 

When I think about sustainable agriculture, I think it should be a way to produce that saves our resources.  We should work to preserve the soil, water, and integrity of our crops.  At the same time, we have to make sure we are utilizing the resources in the best ways possible.  Is it better to use a type of roundup ready corn that needs no irrigation and little spraying, than to use a corn variety that is much less hardy, taking more seeds to get a smaller yield, with the use of irrigation, plus additional energy with gasoline powered equipment?  Is that really more sustainable with a population expected to reach 9 billion in the next two decades?  Some people contest the use of animal waste as fertilizer.  I see it as a way to use all of our resources to maximize efficiency and productivity, while lessening dependence on other forms of fertilizer. 

I want to see the quality of our food increase.  Our food is currently clean and safe, but people have come to expect that from their food supply, and now want the accountability of growers, processors, and producers.  We should be happy that our consumers do take such an interest in what we do, although it is daunting at times.  I believe that American farmers can rise to meet the challenge.

Wasting our Water

I was out this weekend on the River, per usual.  I love getting out and just being on the water, and enjoying my surroundings, but usually I am paddling my canoe as fast as I can trying to beat as many people as possible in the weekend races of the summer months.  I was out this weekend, going along by a few friends (all of us dripping in sweat and puffing along)  and I saw some pop bottle floating down the river.  This happens all the time, but it makes me so sad.

After spending countless hours on the water, I have a great respect for its beauty and usefulness.  Water touches every part of our life; it is vital to our existence.  I have also spent many hours cleaning the river.  Last summer, my family and friends took out our canoes and loaded up truckloads full of garbage three weeks in a row.  Someone had decided to move from their trailer, and not wanting to hire a garbage service decided the river was the best place for unwanted items.  Bags of clothes, hair products, diapers, strollers, dog houses, and even a swimming pool liner were thrown in the river.  We called the police department when we found the person's address on an envelope, but still nothing happened.  I just can't imagine being so thoughtless about the river to do something like that.

I know that farmers do contribute to water pollution with phosphates and nitrates.  As we have learned more about it we need to make decisions that are more conscious of the effect on our resources.  On an individual level, each person needs to take responsibility for keeping trash out of our water.  Even in my races, I make sure I don't leave anything in the water.  I want to be active in keeping the water and land clean, and figure out better ways to treat the soil.  I know that over time our ideas on what is right will change, but we have to do the best we can with what we know now.