Employee Feature: Jon Phelps

“This will take only 10 minutes, I promise”, I reassure the head of farrowing as he takes a rare break from his work. A familiar, bashful smile appears while we make our way to the office space of the building. “You’re the first employee we’re doing a feature on, so you should definitely feel special about this one.” He laughs and we begin.

This is Jon Phelps, the recently promoted head of farrowing here at VG Farms. For the past six years he has spent his time helping nearly a quarter of a million piglets into the world. It all started when he decided he wanted to return to hog farming since leaving an operation in Alexandria, South Dakota. “I saw the opening online and had previous experience in farrowing that I really enjoyed”, he explains, “I filled out the application and here I am.” Jon has come along quite a ways since first beginning with the VG Farms family; from doing chores at one building, to adding another, all the way to running the entire farrowing department. It seems fitting considering his favorite part of the farm is all the piglets running around.

The interview quickly turns into a conversation; swapping stories about our experiences in different buildings, other employees, and why we love pigs. “I never really got the chance to work with other animals, but that’s okay.” He goes on to expound on the rewarding nature of farrowing piglets, especially when one puts the work in. And putting work in is something that Jon does every day. Given our weaning and breeding schedule, Thursday nights tend to result in roughly 400 piglets being born in the course of a few hours. In order to give these piglets the best chance at life, Jon works in the farrowing that night from 6:00pm until midnight. “It’s actually been closer to 1:00am these past few weeks, we have a lot of litters coming through.”

At the end of our brief interview, I once again understand why Jon is so well-equipped to work in farrowing. His relaxed demeanor and quick-to-smile attitude is perfect to constantly welcome piglets onto the farm. It wasn’t hard choosing Jon as the first participant for our employee feature. He is constantly invested in doing his work well and doing it the right way. More importantly, he seems to always have a smile on his face while doing so.

- VG Farms

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