Farmer Focus: Pig grower shed nearly ready for action
Danny Skinner on a visit to the John Deere factory in Germany The new grower shed is almost finished, with only finishing touches now required. Just the door seals to be fitted and magnets to hold the doors shut.
During a power cut, the magnets allow the sliding door to open to provide enough fresh air to keep pigs alive.
The old window weights work well to pull the doors open. We do like to recycle – and save a pound at the same time.
See also: Read more from our Livestock Farmer Focus writers
We still have to build the weighing area between the grower and finisher building with a shedding race to pick out fat pigs. This will allow us to get a tight weight range at the slaughterhouse, maximising output from the herd.
The pigs in the new shed are looking healthy and are eating well on their wet feed system. It is saving time at the mills not having to mix and move about dry feed.
We intend to weigh a sample of pigs this week to give us an idea on how well the finishers are growing. Will let you know next time.
Last week we visited the John Deere factory in Germany, flying on the Wednesday afternoon from Aberdeen to Frankfurt.
Thursday morning was spent at the combine/forage harvester factory (pictured) in Zweibrucken, a huge site producing a combine every 45 minutes during the working day.
In the afternoon we moved to the cab factory watching robots and humans working in harmony making tractor, combine, forage harvester and sprayer cabs.
We then toured the spare parts department with racks and racks of parts for all types of John Deere equipment. Amazing to think if I order a part before 6pm, it will be on the counter by 11am the next morning.
After a great night at a winery and restaurant, we set off for the tractor factory at Mannheim where we saw tractors of all shapes and sizes coming off the production line, one every four minutes, all on order to farmers all over the world.
A special thanks to John Deere sales manager George Livingstone for looking after us so well and HRN Tractors for inviting us in the first place – even though I haven’t ordered a new tractor. Sorry.
Danny Skinner
Danny Skinner farms 440 sows selling finished pigs through Scottish Pig Producers. He runs 125ha at home and rents a further 50ha, growing cereals for home mixing.