The Rural Voice, 1986-06, Page 8iFitk
MOSTLY HARD WORK
Although their dreams and plans are taking longer to reach than expected,
Wellesley area farmers Anita and Paul Dietrich are still working hard to
achieve their goals.
Twelve years ago, days before
the first hens were to be
delivered to Paul and Anita
Dietrich's farm, Paul's doctor ad-
vised him to check into a hospital.
Paul resisted. The doctor was
blunt. "You have cancer," he told
him.
Paul expected to be in the
hospital for five weeks.
Miraculously, he was out in five
days. He went back to his farm,
worked even harder, and under-
went regular chemotherapy
treatments. He tried not to think
about the future. "It was a sober-
ing thought to see the names of my
by Phyllis Coulter
was renovating the third floor of
the barn to prepare it for the laying
hens. After the first laying hens ar-
rived, and as Paul regained his
health, Anita quit her job in
Waterloo to look after the hens
full-time. Today the Dietrichs hold
egg production quota for 4,229
hens.
When Paul Dietrich sees the
prices he gets for the pork sold
from his 110 -sow farrow -to -finish
operation today, he often wishes
he only had hens. "Hog produc-
tion really takes management," he
observes, whereas poultry produc-
tion is somewhat easier because it
involves more mechanization.
Paul Dietrich: "On Monday, at quarter to five in
the morning, it's hard to get out of bed on the
farm when you're only breaking even."
friends from chemo in the
obituaries," he says.
Paul beat his cancer, and, since
then, he has withstood other severe
kicks to his farming plans, in-
cluding the relentlessly declining
pork prices of the past few years,
which have upset his careful cash
flow. But, in spite of it all, Paul
and Anita have established a
showplace farm. Although their
dreams and plans are taking longer
than their time -plan once predicted
they would, they are coming true,
with hard work and adjustments
along the way.
Only one building remains from
those that stood on the 10 -acre
farm that Paul and Anita purchas-
ed near Wellesley in 1972 — a barn
that has undergone such major
renovations that it is barely
recognizable.
In 1972, both Paul and Anita
worked at the Seagram distillery
near Waterloo and commuted 19
miles twice daily. In addition, Paul
Both poultry and pork were in
the Dietrich's long-term farming
plan from the beginning. In 1974,
after renovating their barn, they
could house 350 feeder pigs on the
second floor. The Dietrichs raised
them on a contract basis with the
feed mill.
Paul says that he was never real-
ly tempted to expand his l0 -acre
livestock operation into a cash
crop farm. He has stuck with pork
and poultry, and, seeing today's
crop prices, he doesn't regret the
decision.
Paul and Anita, like many other
farmers at the time, were expand-
ing their operations in 1976. By the
end of that year they had added a
farrowing and nursery unit to the
original barn and had purchased
110 sows. They still did the
finishing on the second floor of the
barn and were able to finish only a
small portion of their production.
They sold the rest as feeder pigs.
Paul then left his carpentry job at
the distillery and joined the farm
full-time.
In 1980, when many farms were
no longer expanding, the Dietrichs
built a finishing barn. Today they
are pleased with the layout of their
barns, although a lot of moving is
required of the pigs. As the pigs
grow, Paul and Anita often have
to load them onto their truck and
move them to the other barn. Mov-
ing pigs isn't their favourite job,
but it's necessary.
Paul and Anita's children,
Janet, 10, and Michael, 8, help
with the chores. They have the
comparatively pleasant task of col-
lecting eggs when they come home
from school. Anita has a less
likeable job — cleaning the far-
rowing pens. Frequent cleaning of
pens creates definite herd -health
improvements, as does the closed
herd policy that the Dietrichs use.
Anita completely takes care of the
farrowing area and spends almost
as much time working with the far-
rowing sows as does Paul in doing
all the routine chores.
Anita clips the teeth of the
newborns, and, when the piglets
are two days old, she clips their
tails, gives them an iron shot, and
castrates them. Previously, she and
Paul castrated the piglets at three
weeks of age, an awkward job to
say the least. The piglets got sick,
and jokes Anita, almost every
castrating session could have been
grounds for divorce. With the new
system, the pigs are healthier and
Anita and Paul are happier.
Anita's extra efforts in the far-
rowing area have paid off. The
farm averages 21.44 weaned pigs
per sow per year. Paul quickly
adds that they can still improve on
this number.
At first, Anita watched almost
every farrowing sow in order to of-
fer assistance. Now while time
restraints prevent her from giving
each sow this special treatment,
she still spends considerable time
6 THE RURAL VOICE