The Rural Voice, 2002-05, Page 29100 -sow farrow -to -finish operatign
will produce $50,000, a 200 -sow,
$100,000 and so on. Year in, year out
"1 don't think anything is more
profitable than pig farming."
There's an idea out there that the
big swine operations have all the best
people but it's not true, Blackwell
said. "Independent owner -operators
are the source of 99 per cent of all
innovations in swine," he said.
"When you're working on your own
place you see problems and you fix
problems." On a corporate farm
things don't get fixed as easily, he
said. Some large corporate farms are
becoming as bureaucratic as
government with forms to be filled in
before equipment can be replaced.
Sometimes it may be easier for staff
to not to fix things, he said.
The best swine research isn't
done at the University of
Guelph or the Prairie Swine
Research Centre but by the 4,000
independent owner -operators in
Ontario, Blackwell said. "The best
place to do research is on your farm.
Smart people at universities see what
you do on your farm then they do
research on it and publish it."
Blackwell predicted gestation
stalls will disappear on Ontario farms
over the next 20 years but it will be
because of economic reasons not
because of pressure by McDonald'q
restaurants or People for Ethical
Treatment of Animals. "It's cheaper
and equally productive to raise sows
in group housing," he said.
Gestation stalls came about
because it was thought they were a
humane solution to the problem of
larger sows in small groups bullying
smaller sows, Blackwell said. So
instead of having four sows in a pen
each sow had its own pen, but the
size of the pen had to be reduced to
make it economical to have
individual pens.
"The only thing we didn't think of
is if you put 10 to 20 sows in a pen
they don't fight," he said. In a Targe
pen, if two sows are occupied
fighting over food, the other sows
will sneak in and get the food first, so
the sows just stop fighting when
they're in Targe groups, he says.
What's more, it's cheaper to build
sow barns with group housing,
Blackwell says, quoting figures from
Fred Groenestege Construction that a
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R.R. 3, Listowel, ON N4W 3G8
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email: sales@HorstWelding.com
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RR #4 Brussels 519-523-9362
MAY 2002 25