We’ve spent the last week at Crystal Spring colony in Manitoba, where their world-famous* wet/dry hog feeders are manufactured. The colony is beautiful in the summer – even the driveway leading into the colony is picturesque this time of year. Quarterly meetings and the usual…
Brian, B, Beezer – the childhood moniker may have stuck, but this kind young farmer is every bit of a responsible adult, raising hogs in his own two 2400 head barns in northwest Iowa. He owns and farms his own 80 acres, cares for his…
Chad and I are off to Canada early this morning. We’ll be up at Crystal Spring for a week, (hopefully) creating solutions to a few problems. I’ll report back soon. Until then, here’s this lovely couple, who I imagine are having a dialogue very much…
And, now I’ve got your attention. Yes, everybody poops, even pigs. While it’s definitely smelly, hog manure is really valuable as fertilizer for farmers. It gets pumped out of the pit once or twice a year and spread on fields with a tank called a…
I blogged for Swineweb.com while Chad and I were at the National Pork Industry Conference this week. Read my reports here: NPIC Preview NPIC Day 1 NPIC Day 2 NPIC Day 3
Nope. Not even a little bit. Because, see, pigs don’t sweat. That’s why the traditional roll in the mud feels so good for a pig – the water evaporates off the pig like sweat off a person, cooling them down. But in a hot midwestern…
I seriously don’t know how people even did early mornings before travel mugs or Starbucks. Early mornings, we are not friends. Iced coffee, I love you. The sky was incredible as we headed east across Iowa. Zero filter or touch ups on this one. This…
I’m a small-town Kansas girl. Population 1200; wheat fields and milo as far as the eye could see. My high school had a nationally recognized FFA program and the school parking lot filled with farm trucks each morning. But I was a town kid, a…
We’re going on a ride along today. Basically, this means we’ll spend the day with an integrator who uses the Crystal Spring wet/dry feeder, driving around to various sites to visit their growers’ barns. (I see a number of white tyvek marshmallow suits in my…
A pig’s tale in 4 parts. Part 1: Find an unsuspecting victim. In this case, my husband, who totally knows what’s about to go down. Part 2: Everything is more fun with a buddy! Sniff the boot. Part 3: Take a test nibble. Part 4:…