# Hog farms



## deadmoose

Why do they seem to have such a bad rap? When I was a kid, I was told there was nothing worse than the smell of a pig farm. That was then. This is now.

All of the farms I know of emit little to no odor. There MAY be a days worth of odor when they inject the valuable fertilizer into the rowcrop ground once or twice a year.

Also, if someone drove by any of the farms I know, the average person would have ZERO idea what was going on there. This type of facility came out of the need to cheaply feed the masses in the cities while at the same time keeping the raising and slaughter out. Just as with beef.

If someone doesn't want their pork raised this way, they can show it with their pocketbook. Free range pork is out there, but the cost is up (as it should be). Not bearly efficient at raising animals.

I guess that is the liberal mindset. "I can have mine, but if you disagree with me, you can't have yours!"


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## somedevildawg

deadmoose said:


> Why do they seem to have such a bad rap? When I was a kid, I was told there was nothing worse than the smell of a pig farm. That was then. This is now.
> All of the farms I know of emit little to no odor. There MAY be a days worth of odor when they inject the valuable fertilizer into the rowcrop ground once or twice a year.
> Also, if someone drove by any of the farms I know, the average person would have ZERO idea what was going on there. This type of facility came out of the need to cheaply feed the masses in the cities while at the same time keeping the raising and slaughter out. Just as with beef.
> If someone doesn't want their pork raised this way, they can show it with their pocketbook. Free range pork is out there, but the cost is up (as it should be). Not bearly efficient at raising animals.
> I guess that is the liberal mindset. "I can have mine, but if you disagree with me, you can't have yours!"


I think with all farming and especially livestock farming, it's all in how you run the operation.....I don't want to live next to one but I wouldn't mind owning one.....the smell, for the small time guys and I have no basis for the large operations, is awful. I have a neighbor (down the road a piece) that has about 40-50 and it smells awful. Course if the wind is blowin just right it can ease or exacerbate the problem. I think that's the main issue with hog farms.....smell. Smell is something that one can get used to dealing with but not everyone feels they should have to.....when I was a child, we had Merck Chemical about 3 miles from us (way the crow flies) and it would stink up for a while and then go back to liveable, but while it was a stinkin, it was hard to get used to.....same can be said for paper mills.


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## deadmoose

Right. The smell. BUT - at least HERE they figured that part out. Non issue.

I guess its one of these things that everyone knows about, yet lacks any knowledge or firsthand experience to back up.


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## somedevildawg

Lol....I think you're right, tell ya what, if I find anyone who had one move into the neighborhood, I'll ask em.....if I find someone who moved next to one, I'll ask em their motive (operational) and their reasons for moving away( im assuming, they did.....otherwise, I think it's just smell other than the obvious objections to livestock in general


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## Thorim

I have found that on certain days of the year under the right conditions my antiperspirant has failed me and you really don't want to be down wind of me or stuck in the same truck cab when that happens lmao


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## mlappin

Depends on the hog farm I guess, local place expanded just south of 50 acres of hay I have, if the wind is the wrong way can't hardly stand to make hay even in a cab tractor. And we've had hogs in the past so it's not like I've never dealt with it.

Like I said, depends on the farm, we always shipped grade A milk when we had the dairy, all barns were cleaned daily, period. Place just in the next county always had cows wading thru a foot of shit, not sure how they ever stayed in business as long as they did. Most people never realized we had the number of cows we did here until twice a year when we agitated the lagoon so we could pump it out.

Huge thing in the UK is free range everything. Free range eggs, pork, milk etc. Nice ideal I guess as I always prefer to see my cows on pasture rather than concrete, kinda surprised it took off over there given the limited amount of space.


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## Vol

mlappin said:


> Huge thing in the UK is free range everything. Free range eggs, pork, milk etc.


......you left out muslim terrorists.

Regards, Mike


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## Bonfire

deadmoose said:


> Right. The smell. BUT - at least HERE they figured that part out. Non issue.
> I guess its one of these things that everyone knows about, yet lacks any knowledge or firsthand experience to back up.


A lady who owns a farm up the road but lives in town stopped by one day. We were 50 feet from the office door. She says "I'm at ground zero and I don't smell a thang." I thanked her. Couple years ago, I had layer litter spread on the pastures. Neighbors knew that happened. I'm always asking neighbors if they ever smell pigs.


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## BWfarms

Grandpa was blocked from expanding operations in the 70s. He wanted to add hogs to his cattle and small grain operation. He had already built the corn crib among other things and they hammered down because of the watershed. They were supposed to be free ranged with the cows, root acorns and such in the woods.


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## deadmoose

Vol said:


> ......you left out muslim terrorists.
> 
> Regards, Mike


But at least when they pretend the rest are free range, they keep em in tight quarters with limited space. Give em "access" to outdoors.

With the latter, they truly are free range.


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## deadmoose

I would much rather have my future meals truly free range then the other.


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## luke strawwalker

mlappin said:


> Depends on the hog farm I guess, local place expanded just south of 50 acres of hay I have, if the wind is the wrong way can't hardly stand to make hay even in a cab tractor. And we've had hogs in the past so it's not like I've never dealt with it.
> 
> Like I said, depends on the farm, we always shipped grade A milk when we had the dairy, all barns were cleaned daily, period. Place just in the next county always had cows wading thru a foot of shit, not sure how they ever stayed in business as long as they did. Most people never realized we had the number of cows we did here until twice a year when we agitated the lagoon so we could pump it out.
> 
> Huge thing in the UK is free range everything. Free range eggs, pork, milk etc. Nice ideal I guess as I always prefer to see my cows on pasture rather than concrete, kinda surprised it took off over there given the limited amount of space.


Could be worse... local egg farm (well, thankfully about 13 miles west of me) has a BUNCH of layer houses and run their own grain elevator for feed... BTO for sure... They have a LOT of chicken manure and they sell some, but a lot of it goes on their carpetgrass operation and bermudagrass hay fields...

Their preferred method of application is to pump liquid chicken shit slurry though sideroll irrigation impact sprinklers... drive within 5 miles of the place in the summer when they're pumping shit through the sprinklers and it will LITERALLY gag a maggot... You can have the windows up in the truck or car, AC on full, inside air, doesn't matter-- the stench WILL seep into the car and give you the dry heaves at the very least...

How they haven't been sued or had the gubmint shut them down, I don't know... You can see their sideroll sprinklers going and the "water" coming out is black...

I guess they irrigate on what they can't sell... I know they sell some for fertilizer... I called one time and got a quote, and I was shocked... when I worked out the actual price per unit of fertilizer ($/#N,P,K) using their analysis and price per ton, I was shocked to find out that it was actually higher than just getting a spreader full of dry fertilizer and spinning it on the hay patch from the local seed dealer...

I asked them why they were charging SO much for shit... turns out they can sell all the dry stuff they have available for the high prices to "organic rice" farmers that MUST have an "organic" source of fertilizer, since it's verboten to use "chemical fertilizers" on organic rice and maintain the certification...

Course, I've never heard of anybody getting E coli or Salmonella from 32% or prilled ammonium nitrate, so I'll take the "regular" rice thank you very much... LOL

Oh well... to each his own... Also didn't have to rent their mega-spreader and have to load four semi-loads of manure into it with my loader to spread on a 20 acre hay field, either... just plain easier to run to the seed dealer and pick up one spreader with a few tons of dry fertilizer in it and spin it on...

Later! OL JR 

PS... Here's some pics of some of my BIL's Mennonite neighbors putting on manure that I took while I was up in Indiana in October, right after harvest... They basically had a drag hose setup running to a big pipe applicator made to fit the three point hitch, with pipe nipples welded to it flattened out for "nozzles", and surface-applied the shit. Went by the same field the next day and I don't know how many times they went over that field, but it had AT LEAST a 3-4 inch deep layer of liquid shit on it that was slowly seeping in... still some "water" standing in places but most of the "water" had already seeped down into the soil...


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## deadmoose

Them boys are the ones giving responsible odorless pig farmers a bad name. HERE, they hire a custom guy who injects it. Always going to be planted in corn the next year.


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## slowzuki

Pig operations here haven't figured out how to control odour yet. No injection yet. They have managed to improve barn conditions for the pigs and farm workers at least. The closest barn to us folded in 1998 and I'm not sure how the workers managed to not get sick in there in the winter. It was intolerable. The next closest operation is a chicken barn, About 2008 they started stockpiling dead stock and manure outside and caused a fly outbreak that covered almost a 5 mile radius over the next 5 years. It was crazy, windows almost black with flies, open a vehicle door to get in and 30-40 flies get in during that time. 3 campgrounds that have been here 60 years almost folded before he finally changed his storage methods.


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## Thorim

slowzuki said:


> Pig operations here haven't figured out how to control odour yet. No injection yet. They have managed to improve barn conditions for the pigs and farm workers at least. The closest barn to us folded in 1998 and I'm not sure how the workers managed to not get sick in there in the winter. It was intolerable. The next closest operation is a chicken barn, About 2008 they started stockpiling dead stock and manure outside and caused a fly outbreak that covered almost a 5 mile radius over the next 5 years. It was crazy, windows almost black with flies, open a vehicle door to get in and 30-40 flies get in during that time. 3 campgrounds that have been here 60 years almost folded before he finally changed his storage methods.


Irresponsibility knows no boundaries nor borders it seems...


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## hillside hay

I find that lime keeps the smell from my few at bay. Side note the amount of lime used in the pens amounts to about 1/2 tpa as applied. I would love to have a slatted floor barn with pit. I'm guessing there is a air movement and digester program to abate smell. I'm really curious about it as the small 300 sow farm 5 miles away was pretty ripe at times. Of course that was an old barn with old tech


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## Hokelund Farm

Lots of hog operations in this part of the state, and I just got done working for a pork company. The odor problem hasn't been solved - they just put the barns out in the middle of nowhere so the only people that usually smell it are the ones who work there - a lot of them are as far from the house (if there even is a house) on the property.

Injecting the manure doesn't take away the odor either, you can smell it for miles with the right breeze.

There is a egg operation in the town I worked as well. Doesn't matter where you are - even indoors - it stunk up the town. Terrible smell.

Any confined operation is going to have a strong odor to it - there is a lot of poop concentrated in a relatively small area. The better it's managed the less it will smell. And some smells definitely seem to be worse. I don't mind a subtle dairy farm manure smell - don't care for it raw up under my nose, but a slight whiff isn't so bad.


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## luke strawwalker

deadmoose said:


> Them boys are the ones giving responsible odorless pig farmers a bad name. HERE, they hire a custom guy who injects it. Always going to be planted in corn the next year.


Yeah, probly so... didn't stink bad that day, but it was a pretty cool day and the wind was probably blowing just right...

Next day it was kinda sweet... LOL

Later! OL JR


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## luke strawwalker

Hokelund Farm said:


> Lots of hog operations in this part of the state, and I just got done working for a pork company. The odor problem hasn't been solved - they just put the barns out in the middle of nowhere so the only people that usually smell it are the ones who work there - a lot of them are as far from the house (if there even is a house) on the property.
> Injecting the manure doesn't take away the odor either, you can smell it for miles with the right breeze.
> There is a egg operation in the town I worked as well. Doesn't matter where you are - even indoors - it stunk up the town. Terrible smell.
> 
> Any confined operation is going to have a strong odor to it - there is a lot of poop concentrated in a relatively small area. The better it's managed the less it will smell. And some smells definitely seem to be worse. I don't mind a subtle dairy farm manure smell - don't care for it raw up under my nose, but a slight whiff isn't so bad.


Yeah, pig and chicken manure seem to be the worst I've smelled by far... that and beef feedlot manure... when they put those feeders on a high-grain ration pre-slaughter, the amount of ammonia can literally take your breath away...

Dairy manure usually isn't QUITE so bad... and pastured beef cattle, heck can't even smell it unless you step in it...

Generally speaking, the stink of the manure is inversely proportional to the amount of grain in the ration, and the efficiency of the animal digesting it. The more grain and lower conversion efficiency of the animals, the worse it stinks... it's actually the bacteria thriving on what's left that's making the horrible stink, not so much the manure itself...

If the animals are making good use of a well balanced ration, the smell is usually MUCH less than that from overly-rich, high grain rations being fed to animals making poor conversion of it... wasted money too.

Course, there's ALWAYS gonna be SOME unused/underused nutrients left in the manure, waste feed, urine, etc in which bacteria thrive, and hence bad smell as the manure "rots" or decomposes. That's where these manure digester setups really shine... saw one at a Fair Oaks Dairy in Indiana when we took the nickel tour... HUGE dairy and hardly no smell at all... plus free electricity and selling electricity onto the grid as well...

Win/win/win IMHO...

Later! OL JR


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## slowzuki

This just reminded me, a friend of mine a little further away also lost his pig operation in 1998, after one of the barns collapsed in 2001 I bought a length of underground rated 6 gauge cable from him and ran a feed from my parents house to their garage for a welder. We washed the ends that came into the building a few times for good measure. Last year we reversed it to bring power from a generator in to a new transfer switch. 17 years no pigs and it still reeks of pig $#$% when you are leaning in close to it!


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## Bonfire

luke strawwalker said:


> Yeah, pig and chicken manure seem to be the worst I've smelled by far... that and beef feedlot manure... when they put those feeders on a high-grain ration pre-slaughter, the amount of ammonia can literally take your breath away...Dairy manure usually isn't QUITE so bad... and pastured beef cattle, heck can't even smell it unless you step in it...Generally speaking, the stink of the manure is inversely proportional to the amount of grain in the ration, and the efficiency of the animal digesting it. The more grain and lower conversion efficiency of the animals, the worse it stinks... it's actually the bacteria thriving on what's left that's making the horrible stink, not so much the manure itself...If the animals are making good use of a well balanced ration, the smell is usually MUCH less than that from overly-rich, high grain rations being fed to animals making poor conversion of it... wasted money too.Course, there's ALWAYS gonna be SOME unused/underused nutrients left in the manure, waste feed, urine, etc in which bacteria thrive, and hence bad smell as the manure "rots" or decomposes. That's where these manure digester setups really shine... saw one at a Fair Oaks Dairy in Indiana when we took the nickel tour... HUGE dairy and hardly no smell at all... plus free electricity and selling electricity onto the grid as well...Win/win/win IMHO...Later! OL JR


Excess protein in a diet is excreted in the urine as urea which is then broken down into ammonia. Most swine diets are balanced on Lysine. Energy content is also important, especially in lactation diets.


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## slowzuki

If you've ever shared bathrooms with fellows drinking those protein shakes and bars all day long trying to bulk up you know what protein does for smells.


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## somedevildawg

slowzuki said:


> If you've ever shared bathrooms with fellows drinking those protein shakes and bars all day long trying to bulk up you know what protein does for smells.


Now there's one I don't think I've ever done......lessen I didn't know it


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## Gearclash

Quick count of hog barns within a mile of my house would suggest there are around 27,000 head of hog in my area. 11,000 of them are about 1/4 mile away. There are occasional odors, but not for long. Pit additives do a LOT for making building odor less offensive.


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## swmnhay

Gearclash said:


> Quick count of hog barns within a mile of my house would suggest there are around 27,000 head of hog in my area. 11,000 of them are about 1/4 mile away. There are occasional odors, but not for long. Pit additives do a LOT for making building odor less offensive.


Some people don't have a clue what it takes to feed this country/world.

Number of hd varies quite a bit per mile and some of that was determined by water availability here.You can only have as many hd as you have water for.You can have unlimited water on one farm and a mile over you can't find decent water.

I only have about 5000 hd of hogs within a mile of my house.My south farm has 20,000 hd of cattle,3500 hd of sows.And 35,000 hogs.

They slaughter 18,000+ hogs per day 5-6 days per week 8 miles from here and I would guess most are raised within 100 miles of the plant.


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## Bonfire

Gearclash said:


> Quick count of hog barns within a mile of my house would suggest there are around 27,000 head of hog in my area. 11,000 of them are about 1/4 mile away. There are occasional odors, but not for long. Pit additives do a LOT for making building odor less offensive.


I also use an additive.


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## slowzuki

Are you talking larvacide or is it something to slow down nitrogen loss?



Bonfire said:


> I also use an additive.


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