Now THAT the huge fall backlog of hogs will be slowing down a bit and the tasty effect of new com is wearing off it's a good time to evaluate the economics of shipping heavy hogs at today's economics. Since the new, good quality corn came off, the hogs have been growing so fast its just been a challenge to keep up with shipping let alone try to control the shipping weights. Early in the fall we documented on farms that hogs were eating 33 per cent more feed with new com. That's a whopping one third more feed in the finishing barn. I have seen intake increases of 10 per cent more feed in the past but never 33 per cent. Whether it was the high vomitoxin corn last year, the weather this fall, the increased use of the circo vaccine or a combination of all three factors, there was definitely a mountain of pork that went to town.
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