Skip to main content

Update: It's Cold...

Happy New Year everybody! To celebrate, may I interest you in some incredibly cold weather? For those of you that haven’t been around the Midwest the past week, temperatures have hung around in the negatives for a majority of the time. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining – it did get to 18 degrees yesterday.


So with an expected wind chill of -18 tonight, you’re probably wondering how we keep everything running smoothly on the farm with such cold temperatures. Well, similar to the steamy highs of the summer, it isn’t easy. Fortunately for us, all of our pigs live inside. This means they are not exposed to the cold for any prolonged period of time. In the buildings they are able to generate enough body heat to keep the entire herd warm through the winter months. One of our farrowing buildings has a sensor system that automatically adjusts vents to control air flow and temperature (it’s pretty cool).


The difficultly of keeping things warm doesn’t lie in the buildings, however. Instead it exists in the transportation of the animals. This time of year it is common to see extension cords draped across the yard and plugged into our various vehicles with diesel engines. Once we have ensured the semi will start in the morning, we place covers over the holes on the trailer. These holes are great for keeping the pigs cool in the summer, but not so much in the winter. With these holes covered, the pigs are able to maintain a warm temperature within the trailer during their ride. Also, pigs don’t like to move in the cold, so we have to administer a higher level of patience during these months.


The cold and snow may inconvenience some functions of the farm, but it does provide us with an opportunity to take out our ATVs and snowmobiles to tear around the countryside. We even found a few days to go ice fishing! We hope that you are finding ways to enjoy the winter season as well. Take care and please drive safely on the roads. 

- VG Farms 

                

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Backing Away from Basics

How many times have you said to yourself or to others that there is a need to get back to basics? A return to the basics can help us realign with the fundamental principles of the task at hand. It’s generally very helpful. When I was struggling in a sport, I often backtracked to the fundamentals to discovered my point of error. Other’s use it in work, family life, and in cooking. Unfortunately, I believe that we have remained a bit too basic in our approach to pork. Go to a retail store and you will see the same cuts that have been available for the past 30 years. You will see chops, shoulder and loin roasts, tenderloins, ham steaks, etc. Now there is nothing wrong with those cuts as they present a myriad of cooking opportunities. But the wonderful pig produces so much more! Take for example some of the dishes we served this week at a pork education event. We made street tacos out of pork steaks (it’s the Spinalis muscle if you want to get technical). We made Chulet...
1 comment
Read more

Harvest Time

Harvest Time           Well harvest finally began this past week. It is always a much anticipated time of the year. This first picture is a combine that was purchased in about 1964.        It was a huge leap in technology. No longer did you pick the corn in the ear and then shell it later. This machine combined the two operations into one which is the reason it is called a combine.           Todays machines are leaps ahead of the originals.          Today we have air conditioned cabs with air ride seats. The ability to change settings on the go and yield monitors with GPS that tell you moisture and yield from a specific spot in the field.           The way we move the grain from the field to the farm has also change over time. The wooden wagon in the first picture held 100 bushels of corn. In 1974 my da...
Post a Comment
Read more

The US Producer: A Hero, Not a Villain

Earlier this week, the US animal agriculture industry once again came to the forefront of the "climate change" debate. As you can imagine, it was not being heralded as a beaming example of sustainability. Instead, it was being chastised as the cause of many environmental hardships. In addition to politicians and media, the Golden Globes got in on the action by serving a vegan meal to save the world. Personally, I am very happy these celebrities took their private jets all across the US to come together and sacrifice so much in one meal for the sake of the environment. They are truly the examples we need to follow. Now obviously I'm being facetious, but it did force me to think about the source of this perception of agriculture. I believe it is a case of our sinful nature – not wanting to take responsibility for our own lives and actions. It is far easier to attack the 1.5% of the population who is raising the world's next meal, than to look in the mirror and ...
Post a Comment
Read more