The Long Road

(Fall in Michigan)

This has taken me awhile to figure out how to write, since it is always harder to talk about the bad things than the good things.  Like many other farms, we take pride in the fact that we raise pigs that are healthy and hardy.  We work hard to keep it that way, but sometimes things don't go as planned.  Over the past month, our farm has a been battling the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS).  This disease affects pigs all over the country, and is slightly different on every farm, but it is not transferable to humans, nor does it cause a food safety problem.  It attacks pigs of all ages, and can be transported through the air, or through body fluids.  Over the next four months (one birthing cycle)  we will lose about half of our production.  After that, hopefully we will get some herd immunity and start to lose fewer pigs.

PRRS is one of the five major diseases that have hit the pork industry in the last 30 years.  Most producers in the country have dealt with it at one time or another, and up until recently, we haven't ever been challenged by it.  The disease isn't new, so our vet has a lot of experience on how to take care of it, and is working with us daily to make the best decisions for our herd.   How are we fighting this now?   First, we are working hard to keep everything as clean as possible.  We have done this everyday, year round, for as long as I can remember, but we are making sure to pay attention to the details and not miss anything by assuming we do it already.   Next, we are vaccinating all of the breeding animals with a modified live virus to bolster their immunity.  Each of our locations with breeding animals have tested positive for the disease, but have no clinical signs at 3 of the 4. We are hoping that by vaccinating our sows and boars we can stay ahead of the disease a little bit and save some of our baby piglets, who are most susceptible if mom doesn't have antibodies to pass on to fight it off. Vaccinating is hard work, and not very much fun for handlers or animals, but it gives us all the best shot at coming through the outbreak.  Antibiotics are not being used to treat PRRS, because it is viral and will not respond.  However, one stress on the pigs may cause something else to flair up, so as the pigs get older they may have to receive treatment for pneumonia, although we don't know that yet.

We are still early in the process of dealing with the disease, so there is a lot we don't know yet.  We aren't exactly sure who will be hit the hardest, or how many pigs we will lose.  So far, according to our vet, we have a pretty mild case, but it seems pretty severe to us.  Once we get our herd immunity established, we will start working to eradicate the disease on our farms.  It will take time to get back to where we once were, but it is something we will work towards.  Out farm isn't the first, nor will it be the last to deal with PRRS.

Summer Recap: Canoe Edition

This Summer had quite a full paddling schedule.  Mike and I raced the AuSable River Canoe Marathon, and won the mixed division. The field was incredibly deep, and we managed to finish 12th overall.  It wasn't our best race, but toughed it out and did what we needed to in order to beat the guys we were around.

Mid-August put me in Western Pennsylvania racing the USCA Canoe Nationals. I raced three days in a row on a 2 hour 15 minute course on the Susquehanna River. The first day was the C1 race, the second C2 women's, and the final day was C2 mixed. I was able to win all three days, and while all the races were good, my best race was probably with my mom in the women's race. We have never won a nationals together and we had very tough competition, but we ran  a smart race and pulled ahead the whole way.

The third leg of the Triple Crown of canoe racing, the Classique in Quebec is my favorite race of the canoe season. It's a 3 day stage race that ends in the St. Lawrence River.  The Classique really tests a paddler's skill. Dad and I raced together and we ended up 4th in the mixed and 21st overall, putting in a very solid effort.

My final effort of the season was the Catalina Crossing in mid-September.  This was an approximately 35 mile canoe race in a 6  person Outrigger canoe. We had 9 women on the team and exchanged 3 paddlers every 20 minutes. I had never raced an outrigger race before, so it was a very new experience. Our team had a good race and were 5th out of 68 teams.

After such a fun season, I celebrated the weddings of fellow paddling ladies Hailey and Emma. It was so much fun to see all of the paddlers dressed up and having fun outside of the boat.

After such a busy summer, Mike decided to race 6 man outrigger, so now we are in Hawaii. Aloha!!

Golf Outing

(Seth & Ethan)

Tuesday was our annual farm golf outing.  Everyone from the farm goes out to our local golf course and meets for a lunch meeting.  After lunch, anyone who wants to goes out to the course and play 9 holes on 4 person teams.  We don't have many golfers on the farm, so we try to have each team with one person who owns clubs, and one woman (for the closer tee).  Even though this year was threatening rain, we still had a good turn out, and lots of fun.  

 (Part of our golfing party)

This outing is probably the favorite event that we have during the year.  Nearly everyone stays to golf, even though our lunch meeting is the only "mandatory" event.  Each team has good golfers and bad golfers, so it is pretty even between teams.  This year's winning team was under par for the 9 holes for the first time ever! 

(The Costume Contest)

Also new this year, a few of the guys decided to have a costume contest, putting on their wackiest golf attire.  We will have to see if it sticks around for next year, but either way it gave all the other golfers a pretty good laugh.

Summer Recap: Farm Edition

Hello again! It has been such a busy summer around here that I haven't done any writing.  In the past few months, we have had many changes on the farm.

First, the new barn project is starting to take shape.  After waiting out the spring rain, we got a little bit behind, but now the roof is on and we are moving ahead fast.  Our project manager, Rick, is doing a good job at keeping the work crews motivated and busy, so we are still hoping to be inside by the time the snow falls.

Making Progress

We also hired an on-farm nutritionist- Dave.   Dave has been working on the farm on and off since his first years in college, and has decided to come on full time.  Nutrition work is one of the areas where we can control our costs and really have an impact on the way our pigs grow.  Approximately 70% of the cost of getting a pig from birth to market is in feed cost, so adding a nutritionist to the team has already proven to be a huge advantage.

Harvest is also underway.  Last week we started harvest both corn and soybeans, and due to dry conditions we have already made a big dent in our workload.  With Dave's work on our diets, good yields, and a surplus from last year, we won't have to buy as much corn from our neighbors this year as we have in the past.

Hog prices hoovered around break-even for part of the summer, but have dipped down heading into fall, so we are preparing for a low market winter.  It's hard to see the farm losing money, but it is the nature of the industry to have down periods.  Last summer we did really well, so we are seeing the slump afterwards.

More updates to follow soon!

British Invasion

June has been a busy month for me, and I haven't kept to my writing as well as I had this spring.  In the last month, we had a British visitor stay at the farm, James.  He came to canoe race, and we had a fantastic time entertaining him for the week.

(James, left,  Racing with Weston in New York)

While James was here, we had the chance to learn some fun new British phrases.  Everything is either "brilliant" or "quite nice."  It seems to make everything more optimistic when you phrase it like that, so I can see why people who live in such a rainy part of the world would use this language.

I also learned a little bit of cockney, although I will probably get it wrong in the explaining.  Cockney is a dialect that has some interesting slang.  "I'll check up the apples" means that you will go up the stairs.  How does apples equal stairs?  Apparently Apples & Pears go together, and pears rhymes with stairs, so you replace stairs with apples, and it makes it sense.  It's kind of a fun code, although I would have to spend so long figuring it out what everything meant that it wouldn't be very efficient.

Our favorite phrase of the week was "loo roll," which is toilet paper.  We liked that one so much, that it has stuck, and become part of the Barton lexicon.  

While James was here, I took an afternoon to show him around the farm.  He isn't involved in livestock agriculture in the UK, but I was eager to hear what he thought of the farm, since the British consumer has different ideas on animal husbandry practices than an American consumer.  We looked at everything, from the feed mill, the shop, breeding, birthing, growing, marketing, and crops.  We talked about training, handling, growth phases, farm smell, and working conditions.  Usually, I can get a pretty good idea about someone's thoughts on a farm just by watching their body language and comfort, but really wanted to hear what James thought about our farm.

 He was surprised by how clean our facilities were, and how quietly the pigs behaved. Probably what stuck with me most was when James commented on how beyond everything, the farm needed to function as a successful business.  It surprised me, coming from someone my own age, who is from a country with very specific animal care standards would see farms as a business, and not be appalled by them.  This isn't an opinion I hear from my American peers who come from large cities.  Even my college roommates, all who have grown up in rural areas, lived with me, and toured the farm, are very skeptical of farms in the United States.  I am sure James' opinion is not reflective of all, but it was nice to take some one on a tour who genuinely wanted to learn.

Hearing what James had to say about the farm, I realized that I had made some judgments about his background that weren't true.  I thought he would see my farm a certain way, and he surprised me by being more open than I expected.  I am sure this isn't a mistake that I alone have made.  Even though I was nervous about what he would say, I gave him a tour of my farm, I was open and honest when answering questions.  We talked about things that we struggle with on the farm, and struggles of the industry in general.  In the end, I felt like we had an understanding and respect for each other.  


In other news, we have had huge rains for the past few weeks, and the corn (as well as the river) is very high!

(a little taller than knee high)

Farm Update: Yearly Training

(New landscaping around the finally finished office!)

It's been a busy month so far, with not much time for me to sit down.  Over the past two weeks, I have been putting together our chore schedule.  The chore schedule is a chart that lists every person working on the farm by the location they work at each month.  I make the schedule 6 months at a time, with each person rotating at least once to a different job than they normally do.  This keeps the work crews from getting grumpy by seeing too much of each other, and it means that every job has at least 2 people that can do it.   Most people like switching jobs, and everyone has some input as to where they work.  It's nice to have the schedule done for a few more months, since it involves so many people working together.

In the field, the crops are growing like mad.  The field crew is scouting the fields, and then deciding whether we need to apply any herbicides.  On our farm, we use hog manure as a good source of fertilizer, but some of our fields don't get any manure put on, so then we have to use another source of nitrogen, anhydrous ammonia, to get the crops the nitrogen they need.  The anhydrous is applied in June, so that is well underway.

(Corn is two feet tall)

The biggest project for me personally in June is the start of our annual animal care training.  I meet with every person that works with a pig from the farm, and train them on handling and care.  In all, I probably train 150-200 people, mostly in groups of 5 or less. This allows for a lot individual time, where I can answer questions and tailor each session to the specific group needs.  During this time, I will personally see every pig on the farm.

This training is a lot of work, but it makes sure that each person on the farm understands our standards.  It prepares each farm for audit, and makes sure that all of the records are being kept up to date. By doing these checks, I can make sure that nobody gets too far out of line, and that any questions get answered.  The training may only formally happen once a year, but on a weekly basis, we (being myself and the others on the farm) are looking at things we could do to improve our animal care.  We are having conversations about animal care everyday with somebody on the farm.  It may not be the easiest thing I do all year, but it is one of the most important.

Listening: It goes both ways

It's been a busy week on the farm and off of it.  Over Memorial Day weekend the whole family packed up and went to a canoe race in Cooperstown, New York.  I am finally catching up from the trip.  A lot has gone on at the farm in the past few weeks, too.  We finished up planting, and the new building project is coming along.

(Corn has really shot up after the rain!)

While out in Cooperstown, I stayed in a hotel on the Otsego Lake, a place I have stayed many times before.  I went to the desk and handed the receptionist my credit card, she saw that it had the farm name on it.  She immediately asked me what we had on our farm.  I replied that we had pigs, and the receptionists then asked if they were all pasture-raised and grass-fed.  When I said that some where inside and some were outside, she then asked how we could stuff them in those little crates, how we could take the babies from the mothers at weaning.  I knew this wasn't going to be a productive conversation, but I told her that we follow the recommendations of our vet, as well as learning from our own experiences in order to decide how and when we wean and crate our hogs, if at all; that we were willing to change things as necessary in order to improve pig care and consumer confidence.  She then asked how many animals we had, and then commented that we had far too many to be good farmers.   I left the office feeling attacked and shaken.

This woman had no interest in my farm.  She had no interest in having a conversation with me about farming.  She just saw that I didn't fit into her picture of what a farm should look like, and decided that it must not be any good.  I am glad she has the choice to buy her meat, if she buys any at all, from someone else; someone who raises animals to the specifications that she desires.  I wish that she could have respect for the way I raise animals, even if she doesn't prefer that for herself.  I wish that she was open to having a conversation about farms.  She didn't understand that we were the same in our jobs: different hotels provide different amenities for different people; different farms raise animals differently to fill different markets.  It's a system that gives us the ability to choose.

I am torn on booking my reservations for next year.  I really like the place I have stayed, and it has the amenities I desire.  I want to be the bigger person, and judge the establishment on the service it provides, not on the opinions of one receptionist.  At the same time, I know that my dollars are going to support someone who would gladly take my family out of business, just because we have been successful at providing meat to supermarkets instead of at road-side stands.    It just hurts to be so vulnerable to attack.  I try to be open and listen when I have a conversation about the farm, but I need the other party to be willing to try, too.

From the farmer side of the conversation, we need to realize that sometimes we can come off just as this lady did to me, like we know everything.  We aren't always open to concerns of consumers, because the answer seems so easy to find for us.  Those concerns are valid, even if it doesn't seem important.  We have to really listen and have a dialogue, not just shut people down because they don't see things our way.