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| Heartland Pork started with 800 Babcock triple negative sows in 1993 and became a certified closed herd in 1995, when it also switched to AI. The business expanded to 2,000 sows in 1997, added a 1200 sow farm in 1998, and added a 1500 sow farm in 2006. |
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| "Babcock hogs are healthy, durable and easy to handle," says owner/manager Dave Uttecht. "When workers are in the barn the animals aren't running against the walls. They're calm and curious. Babcock hogs do not have the stress gene, so we've never had problems with that." |
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| "What I like most about Babcock is the herd health. The closed herd, being triple negative, allows me to focus on production rather than a veterinary bill and health problems. Having a healthy herd is easier on employees too. Less time spent on treating pigs and more time spent on growing the pigs." |
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"We have very healthy pigs with low death loss using the Babcock closed herd system," says Uttecht.
Having a closed herd allows Heartland to bring in new gilts every week from its own inventory. "Selection rates may be higher," says Uttecht, but they're actually lower cost because we're raising them ourselves. I can adjust the rate and turn the sows whenever I need to."
"The general public perception is that when you concentrate pigs you have to feed antibiotics" Uttecht says, "but that's not true in a closed herd setup. We became a closed herd in 1995 and have never had a major health problem. We're not doing ABF, but it's something we're looking at." |
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"There is consistent production from the sows, and consistently high rates of gain for the feeder pigs. Barrows gain over 2 lbs per day and gilts are at 1.9. We spend very little time treating pigs."
"Sows are big and strong, real good milkers and have real good appetites. We feed them 12 lbs of feed three times a day."
"We use ddgs for the sows….an excellent source of fiber, high in phosphorus. We also use ddgs in grow finish and it works well." |
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| "Sows need to be big and strong, which ours are. I believe Babcock has a more durable sow. Our death loss is always under 5%. Because sows are strong and healthy, we make a cull decision on performance, not because of health issues. They have large litters and they nurse the litters well. |
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| "The packers really like the Babcock hogs….big loin eyes, real muscular, lean enough but not so extremely lean. Meat quality is 2nd to none. We've got a lot of great things going here. The Babcock research people haven't sacrificed meat quality to get leaner hogs." |
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"We're always on the cutting edge of technology and management, trying to get better, improving our care and techniques, and translate that to the bottom line."
"We have standards of production, but we try to improve. Small daily things like feeding sows, working pigs, handling little pigs, change types of feeders, small and large pen finishing, a sorting system. Some we tried and kept, others we tried and didn't use."
"Our goal is to do what's best for sows, get bigger and robust pigs and do better in finishing" |
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