Introducing BaconCam--Playing at a YouTube Near You

Drum roll please................The BaconCam is officially up and running! I'm no Spielberg and even though my films are rough around the edges at least now we can give the world a first hand view of a modern hog farm from a farm family's perspective. In Modern Hog Production Part 1 A Family Affair viewers can see how our family pulls together to get the job done--even the kids, although they mostly just play.

Modern hog production has been a controversial issue for some time now. I've heard things like CAFOs are "factory farms that cause animal abuse" and that "CAFOs aren't real farms." I've also heard people say, "Those big hog businesses are putting family farmers out of business." It's past time the pork industry got some positive press. I hope this video, which is only the first of many, will help others to understand modern hog production for what it is--a family affair.

What did you think of the film? Was it what you expected? Do you have something special you would like the BaconCam to film? Please drop me a line in the comments box. I'd love to hear from you.

Hold On To Your Hams--Exciting News

Great news!! The Bacon Blogger has now been viewed in four, count 'em, four countries. But that is only part one of my exciting news. What is part two, you may ask.......

THE PIGGIES ARE COMING!!! THE PIGGIES ARE COMING!!!

Yep folks, our piglets will be arriving tomorrow and we can't wait. I even took a few days off work so I could help with the piggies. Our kids are looking forward to playing with the little snouts too.

Hold on to your hams folks, that's not all!!! There is a part three.....

Photo courtesy of PorkConnection

We will be introducing the BaconCam to YouTube in the next few days. Don't worry bloggers, I will provide a link to every video. The BaconCam will show tours of the farm and the ins and outs of hog production. Everything from how we feed them to what we do with the feed after it comes back out of them. We want to share the process with you all so everyone can see what it takes to get that bacon on your BLT.

Photo from Amazon.com

Phew! I can't take this much excitement.

Do you have something special you would like to see on the BaconCam? Drop your suggestions in the comments section and we will do our best to show what you are most curious about. See you on the Flip side.

I've Been Flagged Abusive!?

Greetings my Bacon Bloggers! I wanted to let you all know that The Bacon Blogger has been flagged as abusive on facebook. I put this picture on facebook with a link to this blog and it was flagged as abusive.

Please someone tell me the abusive part. Inquiring minds want to know!

If anyone is concerned or confused about our family's business please don't hesitate to ask, the comments section is always open. See for yourself.

First of Many Photo Farm Tour

Have you ever wondered what the inside of those big white barns with the giant fans look like? If you haven't seen one yet or if you've only seen what anti-aggies have posted, here's your chance to see the real deal from a real family farmer. I will be starting a little photo tour of our barn so everyone can see the process of raising pigs. In this first one the barn is empty to show how clean it is before the pigs come in. You can also see the shear size of it, this thing is huge.

Here are a few pictures to show the length of this barn. It's a heck of a long walk to the end!

Before every group of new pigs we have our barns power washed and disinfected to ensure that our piggies come into the cleanest environment possible. We also take this time to do work on the barns, repairing what needs be repaired and performing routine maintenance on the barns. Once we're done cleaning this barn it is cleaner than most homes! Doesn't it look brand new?

This is my husband, Aaron. He's fixing the water lines using his carpenter stilts. Beats a ladder!

Soon the baby piggies will be here and we can't wait to show them to you! I'll keep you updated bloggers.

Request For Help

Forgive me Bacon Bloggers, for I have been away far too long. I apologize for my absence but their has been a death in the family. We laid my beloved grandmother to rest over the weekend. However, that is not the only dilemma I have been facing this week. I recently received a new flip video ultra and I've been filming the barns. I've been trying to post some videos on my blog and I can't seem to upload them. I was hoping some of you would have some advice.

I have saved the videos on my computer, clicked on the Internet/share button and selected to share on "other web sites," then I used the "Insert video" button on blogger. After I "browsed" and selected the video I clicked on "upload" and several hours later it is still not loaded. Any clues as to what I am doing wrong????

Please leave your suggestions in the comment area. Thank you in advance!

Please, please, please help!! I want to post these videos and there are many more to come. HELP!

Farming--A Business That Cares

A Small Loss, A Big Lesson Learned

by Matthew & Erin Sweet

We are a small scale pastured poultry operation, meaning our chickens live outside exposed to all of the elements. Because of this we can only raise our birds during certain times of the year. We learned a tough lesson today. Upon returning home from our state YF&R summer meeting, we spoke to the young man who cared for our birds this weekend. Though he made sure that the birds had constant access to water, the over 100* temperatures claimed 30 of our birds on Saturday. This is a reminder of why mainstream animal production needs to continue using climate controlled buildings to house their animals. Though the breed of chicken we raise is better suited for the pasture, it still does not make them invincible. These birds are just like humans and always function better under optimal conditions. Our chickens have one job and that is to eat, drink and be merry. If the temperature gets too high, their main focus shifts to staying cool and everything else becomes secondary. Our job as the farmer is to do everything in our power to keep the conditions optimal, so that the birds have no concerns. But as state laws continue to become more restrictive on animal housing, we have to ask ourselves, whose best interests are really at hand?

This is a great post from the Farm Bureau's blog, FBlog. It really illustrates the importance of housing animals in climate controlled environments. Yes, animals are naturally meant to be outdoors but look at dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, snakes, etc. None of these animals are naturally domesticated pets nor are they naturally meant to sleep at the foot of our beds, but they do. Why? Because people care about their pets so much that they want them to be part of their family. We as farmers care about our livestock and want them to remain comfortable, safe, and alive no matter the weather. That is why we house them in climate controlled barns.

Some will argue that it isn't their comfort we care about, it's how fat we can get them in the shortest amount of time. I'll be the first to admit we are running a business. Yes, we have a certain time limit to get our pigs to market. Yes, we want them to be of proper market weight within that time limit--not too big, not too small. Yes, economics play into our everyday lives but does that mean we don't care about our animals? Hell NO! I've never seen any group of people work so hard for so little. Farmers put in more hours of hard physical labor than most Americans spend complaining about their 40 or less hours a week. And for what? For crops that don't always come up and have to be replanted and replanted and replanted. For people who don't complain while they're scarfing down that ninth slice of bacon but by golly they're gonna harp when it suits their agenda. For no respect and little money for the time invested; would farmers farm if they didn't care? I think not. Farming is a way of life and a business.

Just because people are starting to see farming as a business they automatically assume that it's all about the money now. Here is a news flash--farming has always been a business. But for people to claim we don't care about our animals is unfair and completely untrue. See one of my past posts, My Fine Swine, for an example of how much we care. The fact that producers are constantly finding newer, better, safer, more reliable means to raising animals is a testament of how much we care about our animals.

If we didn't care the term "agvocacy" and blogs like this one wouldn't exist.  

There's Something About Pork

Australia’s Pork Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) is studying the benefits of pork. So far the study suggests added health benefits besides protein. The research team is currently studying pork's "role in improving thiamine status and reducing heart disease and type two diabetes," among other benefits, according to an AFN news report by Josette Dunn.

The report also stated that "with high protein, meat-based diets commonly promoted for weight loss and pork being the world’s most eaten meat, their early stage research studied the health impact on overweight/obese individuals of increased pork consumption...Initial results showed subjects on pork-based diets actually lost weight [emphasis added], in the form of body fat, during the study, but subjects on control diets gained weight."

There you go folks! Eating a high protein pork based diet can actually slim you down and what better time of year than summer to loose weight. Pork is a dish best served grilled anyway and summer is grill season.

Stay tuned for some lean, healthy, grill time pork recipes and get into that itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini!

Dr. Roger Campbell, CEO of CRC says it best, “There’s something about pork..." There certainly is doc, there certainly is.

Read the full story by Josette Dunn.

My Fine Swine

Fare thee well my fine swine

Fare thee well my pink friends

You’re off to fulfill your destiny

You’re off to feed the world

Thank you for your hams and hocks

Thank you for your steaks and chops

Even though it’s changing now, to me

You’ll always be “The other white meat.”

I'm certainly no poet but I thought I'd just throw this out there for the hell of it. We just shipped out the last of our piggies and now they're off to feed the world. It's pretty cool when you think about it. We get them in when they're just little piglets, raise them, feed them, care for them until they're all grown up and ready for market.
 
My husband surprised me with this group of pigs, though. We had just gotten back from our training session in Des Moines, it was late and early the next morning a load was going out. I had to convince my husband to get some sleep instead of going to help load. I asked him why he was so set on being at every load and he said,
 
"Because I feel like I'm missing out. I raised them, I wanna be there." 
 
For all those animal activists who claim we don't care about our animals and we mistreat them, take another look at that quote. We had driven 5 hours, it was 10:00 at night, and my husband still wanted to go and load a 2:00 a.m. load of hogs because he didn't want to miss out. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is.

Slip-N-Swine

Phew! is it hot. We're currently at 91 degrees with a heat index of 102 and if that's not bad enough we're also sitting on 59% humidity. I'm sweating just sitting here typing and I'm in the A/C. My kids know how to beat the heat. As soon as they got off the bus (summer school) they jumped into their swim suits and begged me to drag out the slip-n-slide.

Nothing like slipping and sliding on a tarp with a built in sprinkler. Trust me. I had to belly flop down that thing a couple times myself.

Any who, slip-n-slides are not the point here. I really want to talk about how we keep our pigs cool on days like this. We tried the slip-n-slide approach but it just wasn't working out. The pigs couldn't get the hang of the flop-and-slide technique. Instead, we've gone with the reliable fan and sprinkler method.

As you can see our barn is lined with huge fans. My daughter standing next to one of the fans (she almost blew away) shows how big these things are. We drop the curtains in the front, kick on the fans in the back, and let the wind begin. 

 We also have a sprinkler system that we turn on during hot weather. The pigs just love water. You can see in this next pic a group of pigs chillaxen (my daughter's word) by one of the many sprinklers.

Just like my kids, they love their sprinkler. A bunch of the other pigs came up to me to say, "Hi." But these piggies just sat there looking at me. They grunted a greeting but they were happy to just stay put. I can't blame them. It's too dang hot to do anything but sit and sweat. If it gets any hotter I might just cozy up to that sprinkler with them. Stay cool everybody.