NEW BOTHWELL, Man. – Peter and Mary Wiebe have no excuse for being farmers.
They escaped the often-heartbreaking farming business when they were young, but they made a choice to return to it after only a few years away.
And they have no regrets.
“I love living on a farm,” Mary said of the family broiler chicken operation just outside New Bothwell, Man. “I grew up on a farm. I can’t imagine not living on a farm.”
She and Peter tried out the nonfarm lifestyle soon after their 1967 marriage. Peter had been chicken farming with his father and siblings, but bought his father’s poultry hauling truck business in the early 1970s and left production agriculture.
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However, within a couple of years, the demands of a growing trucking business were weighing on the young family that had two children, a girl and a boy.
“We were spending too much time away from the home,” said Peter, as he sat in the office surrounded by pictures of his family.
They decided to go back into farming, accepting its constant economic challenges as a trade-off for the increased family time it offered.
In 1974, Peter bought the farm they still live on, and put together quota for 3,000 birds from unused quota of his father’s and some he bought. They put up their first poultry barn that year, producing replacement pullets for the egg industry.
In 1977, he added another poultry barn and doubled production, taking on a lot of risk in an industry that many other farmers were leaving.
“I was young and full of energy, and maybe not much foresight,” he said with a smile. About the same time his brother took over the poultry trucking business so Peter could focus completely on farming.
But since chicken farming was only marginally profitable, he decided to get back into trucking. He started up a grain hauling business, eventually operating in the three prairie provinces and northern U.S. states.
In the mid-1980s, he got permission to put up his first broiler barn, and slowly converted his farm from producing replacement pullets to broilers, eventually ending up with quota for 60,000 kilograms of broiler production, which equals about 30,000 birds at any one time, producing about 450,000 kg per year.
It’s an average-sized Manitoba broiler farm.
By 2001, Peter and Mary were completely out of the pullet business, and also sold the trucking operation. Peter now has two brothers, one brother-in-law and one nephew involved in chicken production. But his two sons have jumped the species barrier, moving into hog production.
It was a family decision. In the mid-1990s the Manitoba weanling industry was expanding, and the Wiebes decided to take part.
Peter, one of his brothers and Peter’s sons set up a sow barn, and now Peter is effectively out of the pig operation and the boys are running it.
“They are involved in the farm with me in a bigger way, but I focus on the poultry and they focus on the pig side,” said Peter.
With their two sons living near New Bothwell and their daughter living in Winnipeg, the Wiebes are enjoying life more than ever now that they are well established.
“Family is the thing I take most pleasure in,” said Peter, thinking back over his busy and demanding career in two different industries.
“When you’re young and you’re trying to earn a living or establishing your career or business, in our case it was farming and trucking, you don’t dedicate the time you should. Or, at least, I didn’t. When the grandkids came along we made a conscious effort to be around as much as we could.”
Mary delights in her three grandchildren and hopes they appreciate life on a farm. It’s a demanding life, but offers rewards.
“It’s been a busy life, but I like to be busy,” she said.
