The Rural Voice, 1998-01, Page 22We're the independent
sort," says Marg
Kroes as she explains
why she and her husband Jack
decided to build a barn with a
difference on their farm just
west of Clinton.
"We're not against three -site
production," she adds. "We're
just taking a different route."
In fact the Kroes are
bucking the trend in several
ways. First of all, at a time
when pork farmers are
specializing in one area
(farrowing to weaner, nurseries
or finishing hogs), the Kroes
are moving in the opposite
direction. They've operated a
weaner operation since they
started farming in 1983 after
purchasing the farm of Marg's
parents, Gary and Cory Haak.
They'd been selling the
weaners from their 120 -sow
herd on a formula basis but
their long interest in finishing
their pigs (they talked of it as
early as a 1991 story in The
Rural Voice), was intensified
by the slump in weaner prices a
couple of years ago.
They chose moving into a
farrow -to -finish operation
because, Jack says, "I like
working with sows, but I didn't
want to have 500 sows. We
figured we were already doing
three-quarters of the work."
Farrow to finish gives the
producer more control of his
own future, Jack says. There's
a lot more room for weathering market fluctuations.
Once they settled on moving to farrow to finish, they
also took an unusual road. While most finishing barns are
slatted floor, liquid manure facilities, they moved to a
straw -based system. They'd finished some pigs in summer
on a straw -packed machinery shed floor and learned pigs
loved straw.
They explored the idea of the outdoor -shelter type of
buildings but in the end designed an indoor barn that works
on the same principle. With a steady stream of weaners
coming from the farrowing barn, they couldn't afford to
have any finishing barn production delays because of
adverse weather, Jack reasoned.
The 140 by 94 foot barn contains 18 cement -walled
pens, each capable of holding 50 feeder pigs. The pens are
arranged on either side of a centre aisle which will be used
for loading and moving pigs. Moveable dividers are
installed at the aisle end of the pens. These dividers shorten
the pen by six feet when the pigs are small, then are moved
back to allow more space when the pigs grow bigger.
Taking a
different rid
Jack and Marg Kroes are
bucking the trends in swine
production
By Keith Roulston
Marg and Jack Kroes decided they wanted to go in a
different direction than the trend in pork production. They
expanded their operation to finish their weaner pigs and
built a straw -based finishing barn.
18 THE RURAL VOICE
When the pen is shortened,
two large round bales of
straw are stored in the extra
space.
The centre aisle divides the
barn's grower side from the
finishing side. Automatic
auger systems deliver a
grower ration to one side, a
finishing ration to the other.
They've been filling the
barn one pen at a time with
the weaners from their
farrowing operation in the
original barn next door
(which was renovated by
Marg's parents in 1971 with
the both floors of the original
bank barn as well as a 40 by
75 foot lean-to addition
devoted to the farrowing,
weaning and dry sow
operations).
When the pigs arrive in the
grower -finisher barn, the
sleeping area at one end of
their pen is fitted with a light-
weight cover made of the
same Fabrene material used
in the cathedral ceiling,
stretched over a wooden
frame. This keeps them keep
five degrees warmer than the
rest of the barn.
here is no added heat in
T
the building. The
ceiling is insulated to
R20 and the end walls to R20.
The barn uses natural
ventilation with the
uninsulated sidewall curtains
thermostatically controlled to
open when the temperature hits 16 degrees Celsius. He's
been told that the bar can be kept six degrees cooler when
the pigs are on straw, Jack says. The curtains are going up
and down a lot, he says. Even without the barn being full
yet, the curtains were often open on the cool days of
November.
The pigs seem very comfortable, he says. "I know
they're not cold. I often find them stretched right out."
The high ceiling with its reflecting white Fabrene
covering, along with the side windows that run the length
of the building, provide a bright, spacious environment for
both pigs and workers.
The pens, Marg explains, are designed for pigs to
establish zones. The straw bedding is distributed next to the
centre aisle. Feeding is in an area near the centre of one of
the side walls. The pigs are encouraged to mess near the
outdoor walls. In this portion of the pen the walls are gate -
dividers. Every other day but Sunday, these gates are
swung closed, leaving the pigs in the rest of the pen while
Jack drives the tractor and scraper through the alley and