SASKATOON – Phil Lepage was like many hog producers. His old 70-sow farrow-to-finish hog barn was consuming too much time for too little return.
Each year he weaned fewer pigs and it took longer to get his hogs to market. In short, his barn needed expensive renovations to become efficient.
Over the years the hogs on Lepage’s Bruno, Sask., farm had consistently made more money than the grain operation. He didn’t want to give up hogs, but couldn’t spend more time in the hog barn either.
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He looked into contracting hogs, but couldn’t see the financial benefits. He checked into converting to a finishing barn, but couldn’t find a consistent supply of quality hogs.
Lepage finally settled on a partnership with the feed company Feed Rite. Lepage bought three of the 16 shares in the new 640-sow barn and in return is guaranteed 800 -900 top-quality weaners three times a year for his newly renovated hog barn.
“It was a large financial commitment,” to buy the shares and refurbish the old barn, said Lepage.
It took $30,000 and about 1,500 hours to convert Lepage’s farrow-to-finish barn into a productive finishing barn.
He spent about 120 hours just pressure washing the old facility. It was disinfected twice, the pits were cleaned and chlorinated, the entire facility was given two coats of paint and fumigated for six hours.
He also took out old dividing walls, jackhammered out part of the old manure pit, rewired the entire barn and improved ventilation.
“Hopefully there’s money to be made,” he said.
In his old barn, he was finishing 1,200 hogs a year. With the new system he hopes to finish 2,500 to 3,000 hogs a year.
It’s not easy. There was a five-month financial gap from when he sold the last hog in November until his first batch of hogs is sold at the end of the month. He also didn’t count on selling the last of his hogs when hog prices hit their lowest price in years.
“My banker started to jump,” he said.
But by getting a large batch of hogs in at one time, and eliminating the farrowing hassles, Lepage is hoping to spend more time with his family.
“It’s not as labor intensive.”