The Rural Voice, 2005-06, Page 16John and Ann Nesbit are happy with
the finishing barn they build last fall.
Hightech/Iowtech
John and Ann Nesbit chose to build a hog
finishing barn with straw bedding and no
liquid manure, but theg went high tech with an
electronic sorter
Story by Jim Brown
Photos by Keith Roulston
When John and Ann Nesbit
built their new pig barn last
year on their Blyth -area
farm, it wasn't the typical pig barn of
the last 10 to 15 years.
Instead of having slatted floors,
they built a 6,000 -square -foot barn
with a solid floor and instead of
constructing the barn for liquid
manure, they decided to go with
straw bedding and dry (solid)
manure. To store the straw and
manure, the Nesbits also built a
5000 -square -foot storage area on one
end of the barn that can double as a
machinery storage when not full.
A pig comes through the sorter (near centre of photo) into the feeding area.
12 THE RURAL VOICE
John Nesbit says the idea of dry
manure was so different, that nutrient
management planners at the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food did
not understand the concept.
"They kept insisting 1 needed a
tank for manure storage," he said. "1
told them 1 was just going to store the
dry manure in a special area of the
adjoining barn."
Ann explained the Nesbits believe
in dry manure. She added when they
looked at the final drawings for the
barn, they felt it looked like a
sensible, easy -to -manage barn.
Another innovation was that
instead of putting a certain number of
the animals in small pens, the Nesbits
decided on one large pen for the 600
pigs they were going to put in the
barn.
"That (the population) is small by
today's standards," John noted.
This is one of the first pig barns to
have just a single pen for the animals,
with a partition down the middle.
According to John they have a total
of 1,100 pigs in three barns under
contract to Monoway Farms. He said
the farm is still a family operation
with his two adult sons helping out
when they can. The other two barns
also have dry manure.
When the barn was completed, they
initially had problems with the one-
way gate leaving the feeding area,
but that was quickly resolved.
One advantage to the new barn is
that it can be easily converted to
house cattle, horses or possibly even