Things are changing, and changing rapidly for the hog industry in Canada because the perfect storm is blowing in the right direction, higher pig prices, lower feed costs, and even the exchange rate is right for Canadian producers.
The three things pushing back at hog producers horrendous restrictions created to stifle hog production, M-COOL keeping hogs from traveling south, and huge deep holes dug during the last three to five years of devastation with the first perfect storm blowing the opposite direction.
So, what do producers do now?
“We ship heavier pigs,” says James Hofer, the hog barn manager of the Starlite Colony near Starbuck, MB. “We ship them at the top end of the grid, maximize, and take advantage of a situation of low costs and high returns.”
Hofer says for him things don’t really change because the goal is always to do things in an optimum way to begin with, not take corrective actions once prices go up or down. Have those feeders set, at regardless where the price is.
The Starlite Colony has 600 sows farrow to finish and moving to group housing and also accommodating more space for their grower finisher pigs.
“What we’ve done in our situation is to take advantage of every square inch you have in your barn,” he said. “Every barn has alley ways which is really a convenience for you to walk in and check the pigs.
Hofer says producers should never walk the alleyways to check the pigs, walk the pens, not the alleyways.
“You walk in through the pigs so you don’t need an alleyway,” he says. “So we’ve taken the alley way space to give the pigs more room. We didn’t add more pigs but assure the pigs have adequate space.”
Hofer says the nursery is the big area where the challenge is going to be for people meeting the new Pig Code with the nursery space requirements.
“Finishers are okay because with finishers you are taking off five to 10 per cent in advance of the whole group so that acts like a sleeve and gives all the pigs more room but in the nursery it is an all in all out,” he said. “So it gets to the point where it gets full. That is why the code has a little sleeve in it allowing you a 15 to 20 per cent sleeve. It is not unlike you getting into an airplane where you put up with a little less space but only for so long.”
Hofer is confident the hog industry will adapt to the group housing for sows as dictated in the new Pig Code.
“The way I feel about that is it will evolve because it always has, and the industry has always chosen the best method,” he said. “That is why we are in it and I think very few new buildings will ever be built again with stalls. If I had the choice, I would not put stalls in but go to group housing.”
As far as the economic upturn, Hofer says producers have had five years of financial bleeding; Now producers are making some money, some good money.
“You could almost say this is a lifesaver year. There are many producers on life support and maybe we can now unplug the life support machine,” Hofer said. “Look after our own affairs and be able to sustain an industry that has sustained itself for many years. There were so many events that were not the fault of the producer, all happening at the same time and were simply too much for some people. Management cut back on costs, and then cut back some more, but management going forward will be equally as important during these better economic times for hog farmers.”
Producers have to balance out low cost feeding, experimenting where does the scale balance out re where is it too cheap and it doesn’t pay off any more.
“You still have to ship the pork and maybe now is the time just like driving down the highway you can afford to drive a little faster and you aren’t worried about miles per gallon because you have the money to pay for it,” he said. “I’m really glad to be in the game my younger brother says as we talk about pig prices. Some producers have taken positions as far as future contracts goes now pigs have exceeded those positions. My brother says don’t worry about it at least we’re in the game. When gold is 600 bucks and you don’t have any gold you’re not in the game.” •
— By Harry Siemens