The Rural Voice, 1983-04, Page 7increase would leave Vandendool with
little if any stock to sell.
Every week thirty weaners are
shipped out and the rest are finished
and sold as breeding stock after cul-
ling.
Vandendool is a hard judge of his
breeding stock and will sell any animal
that he himself would not buy. When
the piglets are tattooed prior to weaning
at four weeks they are carefully looked
over. While Vandendool keeps a close
eye on the herd it isn't until the gilts
reach 200 pounds that he culls them
again. A promising looking animal must
have at least twelve good teats, and
strong legs and feet to meet the
breeding standards Vandenpool sets.
Culled gilts are shipped as fat hogs
and if their weaknesses are not dis-
covered before Vandendool sells them
at 250 pounds, then he takes a loss
when he ships them as fat hogs.
The boars are sold at about 51/2
months and sometimes used in the
herd prior to selling to make sure they
can perform well. Vandendool always
brings his sows or gilts to the boar and
stays near the boar pen during the
breeding in case any problems develop.
In this way he gets maximum concep-
tion rates from each breeding.
The price of breeding stock is deter-
mined by the seller. While some breed-
ers charge three times the market price,
Vandendool prefers to charge $50 over
the market price. For example with the
price of $82 per hundred weight that
would mean a gilt for breeding pur-
poses would bring $200 to $225. Van-
dendool believes his prices may be a
little high but buyers have to consider
that the breeding stock is roughly 20 to
30 pounds heavier than market weight
hogs and consideration has to be given
to the time and feed required to finish
that animal.
Vandendool has avoided looking into
exporting his stock. The main drawback
for him would be the intrusion of so
many people into his barn. He would
have to let both the buyers and prob-
ably interpreters into the barn to view
the stock and the set up and the threat
of bringing a disease into his herd
would be very possible.
Disease is the one thing that Van-
dendool fears. Scours and TGE are his
greatest concern because these can be
transmitted from a dropping of manure
from an infected barn.
Vet bills have been kept to a bare
minimum and the only disease vaccina-
tion program Vandendool follows is one
for Erysipelas which can lie fallow in an
empty barn up to forty years before
becoming active in a new herd.
Part of the advantages of taking part
in swine herd health policy (ROP) is
that for $130 fee an official vet drops in
four times a year and issues a report on
the herd health and barn conditions.
The report reads like a report card your
children would bring home from school.
Housing, sanitation, herd health dis-
ease control and vaccination programs
as well as evaluation on the reproduc-
tive performance of the stock are all
rated on a scale of good, fair, and poor.
The Vandenpool herd is A-1. Between
these regular reports on the herd and
the pathology examination reports on
the heads and lungs of market hogs,
buyers have a good idea of the herd
quality.
The real test is in the sows records
and the figures indicating number of
pigs weaned. The excellent mothering
qualities of Landrace sows seem to be
paying off with a record 22 young
weaned per sow from 2.3 litters per
year.
When this reporter was through the
barn there were a couple of sows each
nursing 15 baby pigs. When a sow
cannot support all the litter, Vanden-
dool tries to foster the smaller ones
onto a sow with a smaller litter. It is
tricky and must be done within a matter
of one or two days or the new mother
will not accept the introduced piglet.
None are raised by hand.
While disease is something to keep
an eye on, Vandendool says he loses
more little pigs in the hot summer
months than any other time. The sows
get too hog and literally flop around in
the crate; if they hear a little one squeal
underneath they are just too hot and
tired to make the effort to get up off the
young. In the cooler months Vanden-
dool has noted fewer young lost
through crushing, and he has toyed
with the idea of airconditioning in the
farrowing barn for the hot months.
The value of accurate records is not
lost on Vandendool and he spends a lot
of time keeping both the bookkeeping
and stock records up to date.
This is the one area where his wife
Winnie helps. When questioned about
the possibility of going on computer,
Vandendool said he was quite satisfied
right now with his card system. He
knows at a glance at the sow's card
how she has been performing and when
to ship her if figures fall below what he
considers a good production level.
Because of the excellent health con-
dition of the herd it is rare to see a sick
hog let alone a dead one. But one day a
few weeks ago Vandendool was startled
to find a dead sow who had appeared to
be in perfect health that same morning.
An autopsy revealed that the sow had
suffered from a flipped stomach and the
condition, which can happen to any
large animal, kills quickly. Despite all
the cleaning and maintenance a disease
free herd is not without its casualties.
While Vandendool has his own boars
he still uses artificial insemination to
bring a new line into his herd to further
protect his herd from diseases. The
semen can be ordered in the morning
from the A.I. unit at Woodstock and
delivered by noon for Vandendool to
use the same day.
The whole matter of raising a pure-
bred herd has meant a lot of extra work
including courses and information
meetings to keep abreast of the latest
technology.
But Vandendool is not alone in that
all three of his children are learning to
take an active part in the barn work.
Stephen, 11, helps his dad with the
tattooing and castrating while Charlene,
nine and Paul, five each have their own
sow and piglets to look after. While the
Vandendools have yet to have a real
holiday with so much work to be done
daily on the farm, there might be some
hope when the children are old enough
to run the barn on their own.
Hog farming has come a long way
since the days when the old adage of
'slopping the hogs' was just that.
Farming has become a fine art on some
farms.
THE RURAL VOICE, APRIL 1983 PG. 5