19 Story Idea? Contact Paul.Nolan@Farms.com Better Pork | June 2024 certain level of cleanliness there and don’t enter wearing my dirty coveralls. What items are on your desk? A pad, some pens, calculator, phone, and computer. What’s your favourite thing about working with pigs? You know what you have to do when you wake up every morning, and it’s never boring. There are new challenges each day that keep things interesting. I’ve always said that working with animals is my biggest motivator. It doesn’t matter what you did the night before or how sick you are – as long as you can walk, you need to get up and feed them, and I enjoy that challenge. I think if I ever arose in the morning and didn’t have that knowledge of what I’d be doing all day, I would really miss it. On the other hand, it is a 365-dayper-year job. Sometimes things can pile up, and it’s nice to get a break by going home to my family. Any novel ways you protect your herd’s health? I don’t know if we do anything unique, but good biosecurity is vital to our business. We only have one entry into the barns, and it is a Danish Entry (a method of controlling the entrance and exit of pathogens at a hog barn with an entrance room that has two sides – “dirty” and “clean” – divided by a solid barrier) that is enforced 100 per cent of the time. We wear separate coveralls for work like loading hogs or unloading trucks and working in the feed mill. Also important is biocontainment, from the standpoint of keeping any health challenges inside the barn and minimizing the spread to the next guy. We change footwear and coveralls between finisher, farrowing and nursery. This keeps younger animals from being exposed to bugs and pathogens from the older population of pigs – something that could overload their compromised immune system. This approach to biosecurity was very helpful in combatting and controlling an endemic flu that we had circulating in our herd three years ago. How do you keep your records? We use SwineBooks, which is a complete record-keeping system for our farrow-to-finish operation. It helps to manage our daily activities, including production and financial reporting. The best thing about farming? Knowing that we are helping to feed the world and having an opportunity to raise our kids, not only on a Hutterite Colony, but also a farm. I always try to be grateful for that, even when life gets tough, as it is a privilege that most people never experience. What do you like least? The fact that there are no days off. UP CLOSE Specialty pellets designed with your sows and bottom line in mind! Great for Electronic Sow Feeders • Pellets that Flow Excellent • Don’t Break up Easily • Stay Similar Load after Load Quality • Very Few Fines • Sows Love Them! Price • Very Competitive Sow Pellets CONTACT KENPAL TODAY! Kenpal Farm Products Inc., 69819 London Rd, RR #1 Centralia, ON, N0M 1K0 Tel: 519-228-6444 • Toll Free: 1-800-265-2904 • Fax: 519-228-6560 kpalen@kenpal.on.ca • www.kenpal.on.ca Lactation Gestation
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