Today, I'm in Iowa at the Baker pig farm where I get to meet an incredible family
of farmers. We're going to learn about their values, how they care for their
animals, and raise the food that we eat. Let's go meet the family!
Hi Guys! I'm so excited to meet you!
So Jarred, what are we gonna see today today? Today, we're gonna
take a tour of our pig farm. Our family farm here, we're gonna see where our pigs
are raised and how we raise them. We'll show you the new technologies that are
involved in our our system and our operation and the way pork is raised in
today's real world.
how long have you guys been farming? we've been farming for
approximately 15 years when we left college.
We both grew up on century farms,
which means that our family farms have been in our family for over a hundred
years.
It seems that there's a lot to do in the farm, so tell me more about how the kids
help out. the kids really like to get involved in the farm they love to go out
and feed pigs and get in the pins,
look they know you guys!
What I love about bringing the kids to the farm is it's a great learning environment for them
they're able to process what's going on and it'll help them out in the future
hopefully someday they'll be able to take over the family farm as well.
So I noticed that the pigs are raced indoors, can you tell me a little bit
more about that? yeah, our pigs are raised indoors today
it's an environmentally controlled building. We can keep them cool in the
summer and warm in the winter. It allows us better management to see every Pig
every day, and it allows us to control the way they grow and how we take care
of them make sure that they're taken care of on the right responsible way.
Our wean to finish barn means that our pigs come in at 21 days old weighing
about 15 pounds and they will exit the barn at 6 months of age in about 280 pounds.
Wow I can't believe there's 2,400 pigs in here there's so much room!
Our feed is comprised of corn, soybean meal, and a balanced amino acid ration put
together by our Pig dietitians also known as our nutritionists, and these pigs
are fed this is on a constant flow for them so they are able to eat whenever they would like!
Are your pigs ever given antibiotics? When we identify a pig
that is sick, we do give it an antibiotic. When we give that antibiotic,
we remove that pig from this pen, like we're standing in here, and we take them down to
another pen where we can get closer care on them and watch keep a watchful eye on them.
that is prescribed by our veterinarians the antibiotics that we do use, and those
are veterinarians that we're in contact with weekly on on the health of the on
the health of the pigs. Are hormones ever given to pigs?
the biggest misconception in pork production is that we're giving our pigs
hormones and that's just not true. A) it's not needed. and B) it is illegal for us to
give them hormones.
so we talked earlier about how our pigs are inside, And inside our facility it's
an environmentally controlled system. Right behind you you can see this is our
computer that basically runs our barn. This allows us to turn fans on,
it tells the heater when the kick on, tells the cooling fans when to kick on.
This is what we would call a naturally ventilated barn, so when it gets hot
enough the sides of the building will go down and it allow airflow to go through
the building that way. Technology has allowed us to put them in a more
comfortable environment which allows them to live a healthier lifestyle and
at the same time it allows us to take care of them in a more efficient manner.
We don't have to worry about you know hauling feed all day, or hauling water
all day. They constantly have that, so it allows us to get more personal
one-on-one care for our pigs.
So once the pigs leave the farm, we have a process in place that allows us to clean
and disinfect the entire room from top to bottom; so when our new group comes in,
they have a nice clean home to start out with. Let's talk about conventional
farming practices and how your farm is sustainable.
What's made our farm more sustainable is the fact that we use the crops to feed
the pigs, the pigs produce manure, we put the manure back on the field as
fertilizer for the crops, and it's a circular system that is sustainable for
the long run. By keeping our pigs indoors with the farming system that we have
today we're able to keep the pigs comfortable year round. They're not
expending as much energy trying to stay warm, they can use that energy to grow
and be more feed efficient.
Bye Guys! Bye!