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ADA, Minn. - Even though the subzero temperatures and minus 40 degree wind chill factors have been swirling outside the hog houses on the David Roesch farm, the inhabitants of the various barns are pretty much unaware of the cold turn Mother Nature has taken.

The farrowing, nursery and finishing barns are all kept at a constant temperature in the name of comfort and increased efficiency, according to Dave.

“The cold weather is probably tougher on the guy doing the chores than it is on the pigs,” he said. “You have to be outside to run the feed mill, to walk between the barns you need to be outside, and there has been some snowblowing that needed to be done.

“But the pigs are all inside and for the sows it never gets below 65 degrees,” he continued, “and in the finishing barn it never drops below 68 degrees and nursery temperature is maintained in the 80s, so the pigs don't really know the difference.”

By maintaining such a high temperature in the building, you would think Dave's LP gas bill would be astronomical, but it really isn't due to a few different factors.

For instance, in the finishing barns, after the pigs have been in there for a couple of weeks, hardly any additional heat is needed, since the body heat generated by the pigs keeps the well-insulated building warm. And it does make economic sense, according to Dave to finish these pigs in a warm facility.

“A pig is more comfortable at 68 degrees than it is at the 40 degree level,” he explained. “And they are also using the energy they get from the feed to produce pork instead of staying warm. Pigs produced under cooler conditions also produce more back fat, which isn't desirable when the pigs are slaughtered.”

And the nursery makes use of a unique heat exchanger unit that Roesch retrofitted from a sugar processing plant that captures the heat from the air being exhausted from the building and uses that to pre-heat the incoming air, to lessen the cost.

“The incoming air is heated to probably 50 to 60 degrees with the heat exchanger, rather than the minus 20 degree temperature it would have when it's this cold, which saves a lot of fuel,” Dave said.

When building his hog facilities, Dave also used a lot of the stainless steel tubing from other heat exchanger units that were being upgraded by the sugarbeet factory, to build a lot of his stalls and pen dividers. In the newer buildings, that Dave built himself, all of the stalls and equipment is either constructed out of stainless steel, plastic or concrete. There is nothing that comes in contact with the pigs that can corrode.

“It doesn't look like a low budget, built in a guy's garage, type of equipment,” he said. “All of the stainless steel pipe was bent in a local exhaust pipe shop, where it was placed in a custom jig so each piece was identical to the next one. Really everything I have built in the last 15 years is pig-proof and corrosion-proof.

“I spend very little time repairing things. I just power wash it down and it looks like new yet.”

Hogs are marketed every other week from Dave's farrow to finish operation, with his production going to a John Morrell plant. Over the past month or so, prices have slid down to the $40 range, which doesn't quite cover the cost of production, he noted. But the hog market is cyclical, and he expects the prices to start their seasonal upward movement soon.

By marketing every two weeks, Dave has found that contracting his pigs hasn't netted him as much as selling on the open market. The price of his pigs each time is determined by the weighted average of sale prices across Minnesota the day before he sells.

“That's worked out better for me,” he noted. “With contracting it's more of a risk management thing. But, in my situation, if you look over the past 10 years, if I am selling every two weeks, unless I'm smart enough to pick the highs and the lows, I come out better not contracting; you just give up too much when you are contracting with the fees involved. You are going to give up from $3 to $5 per hundred just on the contracting charges.”

Carcass merit plays a big part in determining the final price paid for each hog. As each animal comes off the truck it is given a tattoo number that stays with it through the entire processing operation. After the animal is slaughtered, its carcass weight is compared to its live weight and that becomes the yield score. Anything above 74 percent results in a premium being paid.

The carcass is also scanned with an ultrasound device which determines the fat depth and the diameter of the loin area. There is a lean premium for carcasses not showing much fat.

In an effort to achieve uniformity, each carcass weight is used to determine a live equivalency weight. The producer receives a full premium if the live equivalency weight is between 240-290 pounds. However, if that figure drops below 240 pounds the producer loses 50 percent of the yield and lean premium, and if the equivalent live weight is less than 230 pounds all the premium money disappears. On the other end of the scale, the premiums again disappear if the equivalent weight exceeds 290 pounds.

“The industry is looking for uniformity,” Dave explained. “They want all the hams to be a uniform size and it's the same for pork chops, which come from the loin area.

“It's an advantage for the packer that the hogs all fall within a certain weight range and they entice that concept with their payment plan.”

In other news from the Roesch farm, the family did get moved into the new house before Christmas, but some of the finishing touches still remain to be done. But the important thing is they were able to celebrate the holidays in their new house.

Since our last visit there have been at least three significant snow falls in the Ada area and some of the corn still remains unharvested.

“Those remaining fields are really drifted in with snow, there is no way they can get the whole field harvested now,” he said. “We've gotten so much snow here; it's really going to be a bugger to get the corn off.”

As we look forward to our next visit, we will learn why some people come from as far away as Brazil to learn the hog business from Dave, and he will also explain why the vast majority of pork in the meat case is naturally raised.