A labor of love begin family tradition

[/media-credit] Andrew Wue­bker is just 6 years old, but he’s already learn­ing about the fam­ily busi­ness every day before kinder­garten, his dad, Alan Wue­bker, com­mented. Alan hopes to pass on the fam­ily tra­di­tion of farrow-to-wean pig pro­duc­tion to his son, and so far it looks like it’s work­ing. Each year, Wue­bker Farms moves over 100,000 weaner, or baby pigs, like the 3-day-old piglet that Andrew is hold­ing. That’s nearly 200,000 Christ­mas hams, or 1.5 mil­lion bone­less pork loins, Alan stated. (Heather Meade photo)

By Heather Meade
hmeade@dailyadvocate.com

VERSAILLES — Alan and Jeff Wue­bker are per­form­ing a labor of love, Alan stated, and one that they learned to love as boys grow­ing up on their fam­ily farm. Now they’re try­ing to instill that same love in their own chil­dren, Alan com­mented. Accord­ing to Alan Wue­bker, it is work­ing with his 6-year-old son, Andrew, who vis­its the farm before going to kinder­garten each day.
“It’s a labor of love; and the fact that my son can come out here, I call it ‘Daddy Day­care’ or ‘Wue­bker Farm Day­care’,” Wue­bker joked. “He gets to learn day to day, and I hope it inspires him. There are new chal­lenges every day, and that keeps it inter­est­ing.”
The Wue­bkers oper­ate two farms in Darke County, Wue­bker said, and it’s a 365-day-a-year job, includ­ing hol­i­days and week­ends. They move through over 100,000 baby pigs each year, he said, with around 45,000 com­ing through on one farm, and around 60,000 on the other. The Wue­bkers breed and far­row hogs, keep­ing them only 21 days after birth, when they are weaned and go on to a fin­ish­ing barn, Wue­bker said.
“A farrow-to-wean oper­a­tion is kind of like an OB ward,” Wue­bker com­mented. “We keep the babies warm under heat lamps at about 90 degrees, and we have to keep the mama pigs happy, ‘cause if mama’s not happy, no one’s happy — kind of like with humans. She just went through giv­ing birth, and there are all these changes that she has to accli­mate to, we just try to make that tran­si­tion eas­ier.”
The moth­ers are kept in far­row­ing crates so that they can­not crush the baby pigs when they lay down to nurse them, Wue­bker said. They also have to keep the baby pigs dry, for which they use Quick Dry, which looks like flour, but the baby pigs roll around in it and it helps wick the mois­ture, keep­ing them warmer.
When the Wue­bkers were chil­dren, their father had 48 sows, or mother pigs, now Wue­bker Farms keeps about 4,600 sows, which pro­duce around 1,000 piglets each week, Wue­bker said.
“When we were kids, it was much more labor inten­sive,” Wue­bker stated. “I always thought it was neat, though, to see the baby pigs grow.”
Accord­ing to Wue­bker, their goal is to edu­cate peo­ple as much as it is to breed and far­row, which is why they brought in blog­gers from around the coun­try to tour their facil­i­ties, he said.
“It’s not always a glam­orous job, but in the whole world we pro­duce the safest, cheap­est, and most whole­some foods right here in Amer­ica,” Wue­bker stated. “A farmer’s try­ing to pro­duce the best qual­ity for con­sumers; so it’s not a glam­orous job, but it’s one we love to do.”
All together the Wue­bkers birth enough pigs each year to pro­duce 210,000 Christ­mas hams, or 1.5 mil­lion serv­ings of bone­less pork loin, he said. And the biggest chal­lenge is keep­ing the baby pigs healthy, he said.
Last year an air­borne dis­ease moved through the Mid­west, and it was a dev­as­tat­ing blow for the pigs, Wue­bker com­mented. It was also an eco­nomic hit for the Wue­bkers, as was the drought that occurred over the sum­mer, he said.
“The drought’s main affect was eco­nomic, as the cost of feed rose dra­mat­i­cally,” Wue­bker said. “It’s going to affect con­sumers, too, as fewer farm­ers are breed­ing, which means there are fewer pigs for slaugh­ter.”
In a four month period the cost of pigs rose about $50, Wue­bker stated, because demand grew. The week of the Great Darke County Fair, Wue­bker said the cost of weaner, or baby pigs was $8.08, while the cost of corn was $8.48 per bushel; and for every pig born on the Wuebker’s farm, it takes about 10 bushes of corn to feed them and make a Christ­mas ham. Cur­rently, the cost of weaner pigs is around $57, while the cost of corn is around $7.50 per bushel, Wue­bker stated.

Heather Meade is a staff writer at The Daily Advo­cate in Greenville.

Posted by Ashley Fritz on Dec 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.