The Rural Voice, 1991-10, Page 28LEARNING FROM THE AMERICANS
PERTH ' COUNTY POJ X PRODUCERS D SCt3� C , MP 1 �YG f W�NG,.ANU
AGGRESSI `IIOG INDtUSTRY ON THEIR SIT TO 'O; CAROLJNA T IIS $ UMMER
Several directors from the
Perth County Pork Producers'
Association recently completed
a brief, but intense, tour of pork
producing and processing fac-
ilities in the state of North Car-
olina. Here is a revealing sum-
mary of their trip.
North Carolina's pork industry is
very big, rapidly growing (at a 19 per
cent rate) and aggressive. People
working in the industry are very opti-
mistic and confident. The industry is
very efficient — both from a produc-
tive and economic viewpoint. The
Ontario pork industry — producers
and packers included — must strive to
be even more efficient, at an ever
increasing rate, to maintain any
perceived advantages it may have.
Theplaces we visited included:
Murphy Farms
Murphy Farms is the world's
largest producer of pork, bringing 1.1
million hogs to market each year, or
about one per cent of the nation's pork
consumption. At present, they have
approximately 80,000 sows, and arc
increasing at the rate of about 20,000
sows per year.
The businessman behind all this,
Wendell Murphy, is an aggressive
executive whose motto is "if you resist
change, you're going to be left be-
hind." Today he is a state senator and
president of Murphy Farms.
Jim Stocker, the vice president, has
been with the company for 18 years,
and shared some information with us
on the format ^nd operation methods
used by Murphy Farms.
Sows arc spread over many farms,
varying from 200 to 3,400 sows per
farm. The majority of the new farms
have 3,400 sows. They operate with a
three site concept. Farrowing and
breeding is on one site, nursery on
another, and finishing on a third site.
"All in, all out" is practised on all their
newer facilities. Approximately
50,000 sows are owned and operated
by Murphy Farms, and over 30,000
are out on contract. Most newer sow
units being built are on contract.
A typical contract on a farrowing
unit would be $13.50 per pig raised.
A farrow -to -feeder pig unit would
receive $18 per head, and a finishing
unit $9 per head. Contract operators
supply the workers, building, utilities,
and property, and Murphy Farms
supply the sows, feed, management
techniques, and operational proce-
dures. All pigs are owned and mar-
keted by Murphy Farms. The contrac-
ting process helps many young people
stay in farming. Jim Stocker estimates
there are 1000 farm families working
under contract with Murphy Farms.
There is a waiting list for people
wanting to get on contract.
Hogs are marketed with marketing
agreements with slaughter facilities
based on a formula times the board
price.
We toured one of their 3,400 sow
units and an off-site nursery for 2,600
pigs. This farrowing and breeding
unit was constructed of pole barn
design with curtains on both sides, and
had gestation stalls with automated
feeding and total slaued farrowing
crates with woven mesh flooring. PIC
was used for all their breeding stock
needs.
Weaning facilities were filled over
a four day period with 2,600 pigs, and
the pigs remain there for eight weeks.
The finishing barns practiced split sex
feeding.
All the farms have earthen lagoons
for manure storage. Building costs for
a new 3,400 sow farrow-to-weaner (45
Ib.) facility is $600 per sow, which is
considerably cheaper than our costs.
Pig Champ was used for the sow
records.
Murphy Farms arc consistently
weaning over 20 pigs a sow a year,
Approximately 30 per cent of the sows
are induced to farrow by day 115.
All in all, we were thoroughly
impressed with Murphy Farms and
their openness about their operation.
They put a lot of value on the quality
of people they employ, the environ-
mental concerns, and take full advan-
tage of all the technology available
today. They have an in-house com-
modity specialist that maintains cost
effective grain operations. Their staff
nutritionists formulate rations for
optimal feeding efficiency.
A turnkey construction department
has been extremely busy building
custom designed three site confine-
ment buildings. The visit to Murphy
Farms was an educational and
enjoyable experience.
Lundy Packing Plant
After having a good lunch at the
local restaurant we went to visit
Lundy's hog slaughtering and meat
packing plant, where they kill and
process hogs only. The plant was
built 35 years ago by the Lundy family
and is still family owned. They have
expanded in the past four years.
The plant has up-to-date equipment
and seems to run very efficiently. It
employs 110 people just on the kill
floor who kill about 8,000 hogs a day
at the rate of about 900 per hour. The
floor supervisor took us through the
plant and showed us the various
operations on the kill floor. They
have three or four U.S.D.A. inspectors
on the line.
All hogs have been tattooed to
gather information about lean, yield,
etc., which is fed into a computer for
settlement This day, the hog price
was $56.60, but they were paying up
to $60 on either a grade and yield
(accounting for about 25 per cent) or
on a live weight basis (75 per cent).
The farmers are paid the next day, or
24 THE RURAL VOICE