Hog Farming Today

[hannnah]

I can see that, but it's pretty depressing from a breeder standpoint to see people paying ridiculous amounts of money for the dwarf animals we've been selecting against for 100 years or more.

[woodburner]

At Fossil Rim Wildlife Park in Glen Rose Texas

Hmm..

Glen Rose is famous for two things?

Billy Maynard, aka Belly Maynard

Rest in Peace my Friend

plus

farm animals.

who would have thunk.

woodburner

[Mabelline]

woodburner--Amen to that.

Hannnah--It's just a statement of the shape of the culture, I reckon. This next year I've been thinking of trying some Belgian Blue Sires (semen AI) with my angus mamas. I kind of like those Blues.

Duh: Forgot to say, Fossil Rim is this real nice wildlife drivethrough park, with rhinosceros (penned) giraffes, about 15 different kinds of antelopes, impalas, kudus, etc., zebras, cheetahs (also penned) and rare Mexican Red Wolves. The farm stuff is at the visitor center--shop, food concession, lookout, and the petting zoo.

Edited February 26, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[stevea]

On the topic of pigs, confinement operations, et. al. -- I grew up on a pig farm in southern Minnesota. We were a small farm, raising grain, pigs, chickens, and until the laws changed and made it too expensive, milk cows. I can say that of the above animals, pigs smell about 10,000 times worse than all other farm animals combined, both in the summer when the hot winds blow the stench everywhere, and in the winter when the low outside temperature means that they're confined to the pig house and the aroma is so concentrated that it makes your eyes water and your tongue chalky (key learning: don't open your mouth!)

We never had any problems with pig attacks, but we were always careful. There were a few two-by-four incidents, but only when they were being obstinate about going up the ramp into the truck when hauling to market.

Besides the smell, the worst part was castrating them. Being the oldest kid, I got the job of holding up the pig by the back legs (with its head braced between my knees) while my Dad showed off his knife skills. This was doable if the pigs were young enough, but if they grew too much before we got around to it, the *%$*#& things would bite me in the ankle while I held them.

The county where I grew up, Martin County, Minnesota, was and is (in my opinion) about as far away from anything that there is in the continental US. However, there are now many many confinement operations there. I've heard that it may have the highest concentration of pig population of any county in the country (I could be wrong about this). Although there are big companies involved in some of this, most of the operations are run by small businesses. In the nineties, everyone who could borrow a little money set up a hog operation. So it's not just the large companies you've heard of who are involved in confinement sheds.