The Rural Voice, 1983-03, Page 13J
quality of the meat they are buying. The
Murrays use minimum medication in
their farrowing operation. A vet from
London does visit the farm once a
month to check over the livestock.
The young pigs are weaned at four
weeks, fed to 45 -50 pounds, then
shipped to a finishing operation.
The Murrays ship about every ten
days. The week The Rural Voice visited
the operation, 54 weaners were loaded
to go to Tony VanBakel's farm at R.R.1
Blyth.
This week (Feb. 3) weaner pigs are
being sold for $1.66 a pound for a 45 to
50 pound weaner. Compared to last
years high of $1.54, a new high has
already been set.
"This winter has been a bad one for
pigs", said Tony VanBakel, "with fluc-
tuating temperatures, and moisture up
and down when the pigs should have
dry conditions."
VanBakel's finishing operation takes
the hogs another step further, until they
tip the scale at 217-220 pounds, then
they are shipped to the assembly yard
in Blyth.
VanBakel has 1300 hogs in his barn
right now, which is a bit below capa-
city. His stock is brought from three
different local suppliers. As each load
of pigs comes to his barn, they are
quarantined for a week to check for
diseases before turning them into the
main barn with the rest of the stock.
Dealing with three suppliers has
proven to be a problem. VanBakel gets
a load of weaners from one supplier
and before that load is out of his
quarantine room, a second load is ready
for pickup from a different supplier.
Despite the juggling, VanBakel has
taken a few chances, by cutting some
of the loads back in the number of days
they are quarantined. Tony said the
best situation would be to deal with
one supplier or, ideally, own his own
farrow to finish operation.
The VanBakels are relatively new to
the hog industry too; they have been in
the finishing operation for six years
originally coming from a dairy opera-
tion.
VanBakel spends a couple of hours.
per day, feeding and doing cleaning
chores around the barn. His wife (Nel-
lie) helps in the barn on shipping days
and between them, they load about 80
finished hogs. Two loads, sometimes
three, go to the Blyth stockyards before
8 o'clock in the morning.
Costs are trimmed where possible.
VanBakel grows his own corn and
grinds his own feed mixed with the
necessary mineral concentrates.
The VanBakels will not know the
buyer of their stock until the cheque
arrives from the Ontario Pork Producers
Marketing Board in Toronto (OPPMB)
�1.��I�1I��l�Ifl�1�f ! ��I i � n�f l�►�I iifl�I�I�i � Imo- i i i�►if►�►�► II-I-iIi - f i f�� ►�� i I -��
The board is "on computer" and the
VanBakel's cheque records the number
of hogs shipped, their weight and the
price per hundred weight.
Prices used to fluctuate on a daily
basis. but through the efforts of the
marketing board, a pool price, the
average of that week's prices, is paid
to the producer.
Once the hogs have been shipped to
the local stockyard, it is only a matter
of hours before they are slaughtered.
John Watson at the Watson Stock-
yard explained the selling procedure
(the Blyth yard is merely an assembly
yard and no actual auctioning of stock
is done at that location).
The stock is unloaded and herded
into a pen, in reality a large weigh
scale. which can hold 25 hogs per
weighing. The weight is flashed in the
office on a digital readout and recorded
This new scale head was installed
about a year ago and has made weigh-
ing much simpler
Before the new scale, Watson said.
the stock was weighed with a platform
pen and a series of weights to balance
the loadto determine the weight of the
stock.
(cont on next page]
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THE RURAL VOICE, MARCH 1983 PG. 13