The Rural Voice, 2003-04, Page 26Vanden Heuvel
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22 THE RURAL VOICE
problems won't surface."
Still, critics of modern swine
operations being too dependent on
antibiotics are wrong, he says. "We
use less antibiotics now than 15 years
ago," he says. Part of this came from
moving to a closed herd but a large
part of the gain has come from better
nutrition.
"The drug bill is the lowest bill in
the operation," he says, though the
bill for vaccinations has increased as
the size of the herd grew.
n fact Wilson is sure the hogs
produced in modern facilities are
healthier than hogs raised in the
old days in older barns or outside.
New barns have good humidity
controls that help prevent the spread
of disease in barns. Birds and other
pests are kept out so there's Tess
chance of them spreading disease.
Biosecurity is not rigid in the
Wilson barns. They don't allow
anyone to enter who has been at
another hog barn recently but they
don't use a shower -in, shower -out
system.
The finishing areas on the Wilson
barn are on an all -in, all-out schedule
with washing and disinfecting done
between fillings.
An older barn on another farm
houses many of the gilts on a straw -
based, group housing system. It's not
as convenient a set up as the new
barn but its an inexpensive place to
raise pigs, he says.
The original barn on what is now
the home farm, was an old bank barn
but the it burned in the early 1990s. It
was one of those cases where a
tragedy at the time led to the benefit
of new buildings in the long run.
They built a farrowing barn in the fall
of 1993, then added a finishing barn
in 1994 and have been expanding
since. The new barn is almost the
size of the first two barns put
together.
The expansion meant going
through nutrient management
planning, something he didn't look
forward to but which turned out not
to be as difficult as anticipated. In
order to secure future land needs for
the application of manure they also
recently bought two nearby farms,
including his original family farm.
All this expansion at a time when