The 2010 National Agri-Marketing Association Boot Camp is in full swing in KC, MO. This is the 7th annual event. Time flies when you’re having fun. Seems like just yesterday the first Boot Camp was held. The Chair for this year’s event is Melanie Acklin, Director of Marketing, SFP. I spoke with Melanie after the farm tour today that was …
GIPSA Rule Hot Topic At Next USDA/DOJ Workshop
The next USDA/DOJ public workshop on competition in the livestock industry is scheduled for next week in Ft. Collins, CO, and I will be attending. The session will be held on Friday and there will be a separate session the evening before hosted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and National Pork Producers Council which I will also be attending. …
Swine Health Seminar Take Aways
It’s always good to hear from the producers who attend a farm production meeting like the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar. I’ve posted interviews with all the presenters so let’s hear from a couple of the attendees. First up is Mark Daughtry, Prestage Farms. He actually has a contract farm with Prestage bu also works for them. He says …
Wyffels Attendees Hear About Great Potential in Ag
Too often we hear about all of the negatives in agriculture – bad weather, bad markets, opposition from groups that really don’t understand production agriculture. But attendees of the recent Wyffels Hybrids Corn Strategies 2010 held in a tent on the Cummings family farm just outside of the eastern Iowa town of Malcom heard that there is tremendous potential in …
Treating Post Weaning Scours
The last presentation at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar did not focus on PRRS. Instead we heard a presentation from Chad Stahl, North Carolina State University, on controlling post wean scours. Yeah, it’s as nasty as it sounds too. Chad was talking about post E. coli caused post weaning diarrhea and ways to mitigate it in your herd. …
Train Your Pig To Test Orally
We’ve heard about the oral testing of hogs for disease from Jeff Zimmerman, DVM, Iowa State University, before, here and here. But a guy with a last name of Zimmerman is worth hearing again! And that’s what we did at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar. Jeff has found in his work that there is a better way to …
Positive Swine Industry Economic Report
The participants at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar heard a positive economic report from Steve Meyer, Paragon Economics. Steve also modeled a new BIVI cap for us. He starts out saying the best news this year has been hog prices which recovered very nicely in the spring. Supplies have been reduced as a consequence of increased input costs …
Don’t Forget Swine Diseases Other Than PRRS
When it comes to hog production your veterinarian is one of the first sources of information and often considered a “team member.” At the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar Mike Elsenmenger, DVM, Swine Vet Center, talked to us about production. Mike wanted attendees to know that to have successful grow-finish pigs it starts at the sow farm and that …
Encouraging Area/Regional PRRS Control
The first presentation of the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar focused on the control of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome which is better know as the PRRS virus. Dr. Laura Batista, DVM, Boehringer Ingelheim, provided a look at various projects to create area or regional control of the disease. She was also encouraging attendees to get involved or start …
BIVI Swine Health Seminar Overview
The emcee for the North Carolina Swine Health Seminar is David Gocken, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica North America National Sales Manager for the Swine Group. I spoke with him before we got started to get an overview of the program here. David says this is the 10th annual seminar that BIVI has conducted and although it has been in different places, …