A few weeks back, a good friend of mine from St. Louis came to visit our farm for the first time. Not only was this her first trip to our farm, it was her first trip to any pig farm. You can read what my friend, Janice, thought of our farm here. Janice is a great blogger and a great story teller, I know you will enjoy her blog about our farm!
While visiting our farm, Janice asked me lots and lots of questions. She gave me some great ideas for my blog, one was “How do you pick up piglets?” I explained to Janice that piglets feel the most comfortable being picked up by their back legs. When you see someone carrying or picking up a piglet by the back legs, they are not hurting the pig. This is a practice that is used for handling piglets on all types of farms, both indoors and outdoors. When you pick up a pig and hold it next to your body, they try to get away and they squeal. They really don’t want to snuggle and cuddle with humans. When picking the pig up by it’s back legs, they are calm and they don’t squeal. Why does it matter if a pig squeals? If the piglet squeals, it upsets the mother and in turn, this upsets the pigs. This causes stress for both the piglet and the mother. We like to keep the pigs and sows calm and comfortable. So if you ever see someone carrying a small pig by the back legs, rest assured the pig is not being hurt and it is not causing stress for the pig. (In the picture above, Conner is putting a piglet back with it’s mother and litter mates after he let Janice hold the pig. That’s a story for another day though!)
Tonight I received some news that made my day! The kids and I were taking care of our cattle when I glanced down at my phone because I had a message. I had to do a double take when I read the note from a friend that read, “DOL heard us, they are dropping child labor regs!” I couldn’t believe my eyes! At first I thought it was a typo but when I opened up the link she sent and read this news release from the American Farm Bureau, I knew it was for real!
When I shared the good news with the kids, Rachelle was just as shocked as I was. The first words out of her mouth were “You mean I won’t be in trouble now for working with you and dad on the farm?” When I told her that was exactly what this news meant she screamed, “YES! I can work with my heifer now and not get you in trouble with DOL!”
Conner was Mr. Cool about the news, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I knew they would figure it out!” He made both Rachelle and I laugh.
This news wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the work of so many people. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and others in Congress, THANK YOU for supporting our family farm and the future of our children. And a big thank you to all of the farmers and ranchers who took the time to make phone calls, write letters and blog about the impact this proposed rule would have on family farms and ranches all over the USA. My children’s future to farm looks brighter tonight because we took the time to voice our concerns. It just goes to show one person can make a difference. THANKS to everyone who helped make a difference!
This month has been filled with Rachelle’s track meets but I have enjoyed every minute of it. Rachelle runs the mile, 800 meter run, the 1600 meter relay and she does the high jump. Each meet she improves on her running and jumping. She placed first in both the mile and the 800 meter run in the last four track meets. Her best time for the mile is 6 minutes flat and for the 800 meter it is 2 minutes 42 seconds. At one of the meets, there were 19 schools competing and 38 girls competing in the mile and 36 girls competing in the 800 meter run. She was so excited to place first in that meet, and her team placed 4th out of 19 teams overall. It was a great day for all of the girls.
This week Rachelle didn’t have such a great week of jumping. She had to run both the mile and the 800 meter run before she competed in the high jump. She literally walked off the track from running 1 ½ miles and the official gave her 1 minute and 30 seconds to jump or she was disqualified. Rachelle was shook to say the least at this news. She tried her best to clear the jump but her legs were too tired and she was out of breath. That was a tough life lesson for her to learn. She didn’t think it was fair to have to jump so soon after running that far. My heart ached for her because it wasn’t fair but that is how life goes. Many things in life are not fair but you have to pick yourself up and move on. She stumbled a little bit on this life lesson but I was proud of her for at least trying to make the jump.
What impressed me the most though was the support she was shown from her fellow teammates and from the other competitors who she was jumping against. They were cheering her on and encouraging her every step of the way. A few of the girls who she ran against in the mile and 800 meter run even came over to the high jump area to show their support for her. They were all from different schools but they were so supportive of each other. It was one of those moments that are priceless. These kids are all great sports and they truly encompass what great sportsmanship is all about.
Rachelle has become very close with several of the girls from surrounding schools due to track. She sits in the stands and cheers on her teammates and she also cheers for her new friends from area schools. I don’t remember ever seeing this happen when I was in school. I am so very proud of these kids, they all have big hearts! I think Rachelle is going to miss her new friends when track is over but that is a few weeks away. Many of these girls she has found on Facebook but she says she will miss their weekly visits at the track meets.
This week was another crazy week. My new computer for the farm is almost ready to take over for my old computer that was slowly dying. My biggest challenge has been to get all of our customized farm programs transferred and compatible to a 64 bit computer and to Windows 7. Many of my programs had to be updated to work with Windows 7. This took some time and of course, more money. I have one more program that will not work yet but I am closer than I was last week at this time. (Hopefully the software company will be able to find a quick fix and have me back to normal within 6 – 8 weeks. UGH!) Until then, I am limping along and holding my breath that my old computer doesn’t give out on me.
I have been fighting with my computer for over a month now. I haven’t been able to use my dot matrix printer for the last five weeks and my work was really piling up. I know – no one uses a dot matrix printer anymore, which is technology from the 1990’s. However, I couldn’t live without my dot matrix printer. My family wishes the printer would die because it’s too loud and it squawks. I tell them it’s one guaranteed way for me to clear everyone out of my office and give me some ‘quiet’ time.
So why would anyone still use a dot matrix printer in the year 2012 you might ask? We use triple copy carbon paper for our sow cards and the dot matrix allows us to print three copies of the sow information at one time. This allows us to tear off one copy of the information when the sow gives birth (farrows) and to keep the other two copies with the sow. The single copy comes to my office and I enter all of the data into my computer. When the sow is bred, we tear off the second copy and I enter the new data into the computer. This allows us to always have a copy of the sow’s history with her at all times. Once the sow breeding data is entered, I will print off a new triple copy sow card with the updated history and it will replace the old card.
Not having my printer for the last five weeks has really put me behind. I spent the last two days printing sow cards and I am still not caught up. Everyone who came near my office complained about the noise level. I just smiled because I was finally getting caught up on my work!
I’ve been absent from my blog for over a month and I have to admit I have missed blogging. My absence in blogging is because I am guilty of being a mom in my spare time; a soccer mom, track mom, 4-H mom, softball mom and farm mom. I have spent the last six weeks of my life running after our kids. In a nutshell, this is what my family’s last six weeks have looked like:
Monday’s after school we have track practice and soccer practice, followed by softball pitching practice and then working with the kids’ 4-H livestock and homework. Tuesday’s are a slower day, we only have track practice and the 4-H livestock to work with, followed by homework and pitching a few softballs in the yard. Wednesday’s we have track practice, church, and of course, the 4-H livestock and homework. Thursdays are probably our busiest day; we have track practice, soccer practice, archery practice, 4-H livestock and homework. By the time Friday rolls around, my car is out of gas which really stinks because track practice is before school on Friday’s. Saturday’s are full of laundry and cleaning. And somehow in all of this mess Conner finds time to gather the eggs and clean them each day. (Where there is a will there is a way!)
Last week I was getting pretty tired of the running and I was almost ready to tell the kids something was going to have to give. That’s when the track meets started and I wasn’t sure how we were going to fit everything in. At the first track meet I saw how Rachelle’s hard work had paid off. Last year she ran the mile in 6 minutes and 20 seconds. I thought that was amazing but this year she ran the mile in 6 minutes flat. At her first meet she placed 1st in three of her running events and 2nd in the high jump. I was so proud of her!
The next night at Conner’s soccer practice I saw the same hard work paying off for him. His skills are still developing but he was doing so much better than he was 3 weeks ago at this time. And he has kept his grades up in all of his subjects and even improved in math.
Rachelle and Conner’s achievements are a result of what they have learned working on our family farm. They have grown up watching their dad work long hours in the heat and cold to make sure our farm and livestock were taken care of. They were right beside him most days helping and they know how important it is to always give 100% to every task.
Rachelle running in a school track relay team in 2005. Who knew this would be the start of her love for running.
Kevin has never been able to watch Rachelle in a track meet, mainly because track falls during planting season. Rachelle is ok with that because she knows dad’s job isn’t a 9-5 job. Kevin actually laughs at me when I tell him how exciting her track meets are. He always compared the excitement of a track meet to watching paint dry. I told him he just had to be there to feel the excitement of seeing these kids break their personal best times or to win a race. Last night though, Kevin did something I have NEVER seen him do before. He parked the tractor and walked away from the field to drive 16 miles to see Rachelle run in her track meet. I was so proud of him! The smile on Rachelle’s face was priceless when she saw her dad sitting in the stands. And it was great to hear him cheering beside me, “Run Chelle, Run!”
Now he knows the excitement of watching a track meet and Rachelle got to hear her dad cheering her on as she ran. She won all three of her races last night, ‘just for her dad’ she said. And when her last race was over, back to the field Kevin went. She was in bed asleep when he came home at 10:30, but I think they both went to bed with a smile on their faces. It’s moments like these that make all of the running and hard work worth it!
I had a comment on one of my blog posts about youth working on the farm from a person who thought farmers were forcing their kids to work on the farm. They indicated we were wrong to do this and that our kids needed to be in school. In my blog post, I clearly stated my children willingly worked on our farm and it was something they loved doing. In my response to this comment, I pointed out our children do go to school. They help on the farm when they are not in school and they do this willingly because it is fun and they love being with Kevin and I.
I found a blog post this morning from a good friend of mine, Garrick Hall, who has a dairy. His daughter, Hannah, who is 7 years old, posted on his blog. She talks about what she does on the farm with her parents. I thought it was a great post from the eyes of a child. It shows how much our children enjoy being with us on our farms. And it proves that my kids are not alone, they are not the only kids who love to work with their parents on the family farm. Garrick’s blog has some great pictures of his kids working on the dairy and it shows working on the farm is safe.
I wanted to share this because it is an accurate image of family farming. I know some people are trying to say the parental exemption would allow our kids to work on the farm. What they aren’t telling people is that most family farms are not solely owned by the parents, but owned by several family members. The Department of Labor is not clearly defining if the parental exemption will carry over onto the farms owned by grandparents, aunts and uncles. It also doesn’t state if it carries over to our neighbors farm either. In rural America, neighbors still help neighbors on a regular basis.
(Disclaimer: The intent of this blog is to help people outside of agriculture to understand why some farmers choose to raise their animals indoors. What works on my farm may not work for another farmer, each farm is different, as are the genetics of hogs. My intent with this post is to help people understand why some farmers use modern technology on their farm. Our family changed the type of hog we raise to be a leaner hog with less body fat because of consumer demand. With that change came additional challenges to raising this type of pig in harsh weather conditions. That is why we chose to move our animals inside of barns because the lean type of hogs we raise can not endure the weather as well as hogs with more body fat. This is not meant to be an indictment of farmers who choose to raise their hogs outdoors.)
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Today McDonald’s announced they would phase out the use of gestation stalls from their pork suppliers. They received pressure from HSUS, the Humane Society of the United States, which is not connected to our local pet shelters as their commercials lead you to believe. HSUS is bullying the agriculture industry by putting pressure on restaurants like Wendy’s, Burger King, Sonic, Subway, Quiznos, Red Robin, Denny’s, and McDonald’s to force farmers into using certain methods of production that HSUS sees as humane.
Our family has raised hogs outdoors and indoors, we’ve used gestation group housing for our sows and gestation stalls. I wonder how many farmers these companies spoke to before they caved to HSUS’ bullying? Did they ever ask a farmer what it was like to raise animals using each method of production? Chipotle has a commercial on their website attacking modern livestock farming for using barns to protect our livestock. I wonder if they talked to a farmer who was using a barn to find out why they adopted this method of production? The video below shows why farmers use modern barns.
As a farmer, animal welfare is my top priority. I want my animals to be safe, secure, content and comfortable. My family made the decisions we made because of the personal experiences we had raising hogs outside. This does not mean that farmers who currently raise hogs outside have similar challenges.
But, from personal experience, I remember when we had our lean hogs outside, it was miserable for the hogs in the summer. A hog can not sweat so when we had heat indexes of 110 degrees, our hogs couldn’t cool down their bodies. We would haul water to the hogs all day long to try to cool them off. The hogs would huddle together to fight for the mud to cool their bodies, some hogs were injured due to this fighting and died. Many hogs died from heat exhaustion. Our barns keep our hogs cool in the summer thanks to a computer controlled climate system that regulates the temperature in our barn. We also use drippers to keep the hogs cool as well.
In the winter, our hogs were out in lots with small open front shelters to try and keep them warm. We would bed them down with straw but the hogs would still shiver and shake from the cold weather and cold ground because they had little body fat to keep them warm. (note: our hogs do not have the fat on them some hogs did 20 years ago due to consumers wanting leaner meat) They had difficulty walking in the deep snow and they couldn’t stay standing on the ice. We had many hogs with broken legs due to falling on ice. They would huddle together to try and find warmth and fighting would break out. Some of the hogs were trampled to death and the less dominant animals would be left out of the shelter and we would find them frozen to the ground, dead. Our experience led us to the decision that, for our farm, there was a better way.
We decided that there was a better way for us to care for the animals on our farm since our hogs were not the same fat pigs as 30 years ago. When a sow gave birth outdoors in this extreme cold, her piglets would also freeze to the ground; they can not regulate their body temperatures in the first weeks of life. Our hog barns help prevent these problems, they are heated in the winter and we have heat lamps for the newborn pigs so they have additional warmth in the first weeks of life.
Predator attacks were also a big problem for us when our hogs were outdoors. Bobcats, coyotes, raccoons, and oppossums would attack the smaller pigs and kill them. Wildlife and birds also tracked diseases into our herd and caused our hogs to get sick. Our barns keep our hogs away from these predators and diseases.
When we used group housing for our pregnant sows, we had a lot of problems. The first problem was the bully sow, who reminds me of HSUS because both want to control what others eat. The bully sow doesn’t allow other sows to eat, they fight with the less dominant sows and prevent them from going to the feed. As a result, the bully sow eats too much and will give birth to pigs that are too big to pass through the birth canal, many times resulting in the sow’s death and the piglet’s death. The less dominant sows, who don’t have enough feed, give birth to still born pigs or low viability pigs that have a very low chance of survival due to not having proper nutrition during gestation. Sows would rather bite their neighbors ear off than share a meal with them. Our gestation stalls allow us to monitor the feed each sow takes in so she has proper nutrition throughout the entire pregnancy.
Another problem we experienced with group housing were the sows being stepped on by other sows which resulted in abortions. When a sow lays down to rest in our stalls, she has no worries of being stepped on by another sow. Our sows are also protected from injury because there is no fighting with other sows. We are able to give each sow hands-on attention multiple times a day in our stalls. My mother-in-law examines each sow daily for body condition, she does this with her hands. She is protected while she does this and the sow doesn’t mind having my mother-in-law rubbing her back, stomach, sides and legs. If our sows were in group housing, my mother-in-law couldn’t give each sow this attention, she would be knocked down and hurt doing this in a group setting. We prevent many problems by doing this hands-on exam daily.
As you can see, we have implemented every practice on our farm with the goal of keeping our animals safe, healthy and protected. Farmers are faced with the challenge of producing more food than ever before and modern technology is helping my family achieve this goal humanely. Housing animals inside a barn is just as humane and safe as housing an animal outdoors. Each method has challenges and each method is acceptable in my opinion. HSUS has a goal of eliminating meat from our diets, just visit their website and you will see their vegetarian eating guide. This is their true goal, it isn’t about protecting animals. They are even lobbying churches now to join their faithful eating cause to regulate agriculture and make meat less available to all.
Did any of these companies talk to farmers like us before they made their decisions? I don’t know the answer to this question and I probably never will. What I do know is that it’s time for people to hear the real story behind HSUS. It’s time consumers started to hear the other side of the issue from the hands that are producing the food, not the hand that wants to keep it away from your table. Farmers & Ranchers need to engage in conversations and show people how we produce food. We have come a long way in agriculture and we are always looking for ways to improve. This isn’t what HSUS & PETA tell people though. I have nothing against vegans or vegetarians, I just don’t want to be forced to become one. Just like I wouldn’t expect a vegan or vegetarian to be forced to eat meat. This is a free country, we can not allow one group to bully us out of our freedoms.
Update: A reader asked for a real life video of indoor hog farming. Here is a video that does a great job of explaining and showing what indoor hog farming looks like. Sorry I didn’t include it earlier.
I explained to Janice that piglets feel the most comfortable being picked up by their back legs. When you see someone carrying or picking up a piglet by the back legs, they are not hurting the pig. This is a practice that is used for handling piglets on all types of farms, both indoors and outdoors. When you pick up a pig and hold it next to your body, they try to get away and they squeal. They really don’t want to snuggle and cuddle with humans. When picking the pig up by it’s back legs, they are calm and they don’t squeal. Why does it matter if a pig squeals? If the piglet squeals, it upsets the mother and in turn, this upsets the pigs. This causes stress for both the piglet and the mother. We like to keep the pigs and sows calm and comfortable. So if you ever see someone carrying a small pig by the back legs, rest assured the pig is not being hurt and it is not causing stress for the pig. (In the picture above, Conner is putting a piglet back with it’s mother and litter mates after he let Janice hold the pig. That’s a story for another day though!)
