I am a retired producer that spends part of my day at Ralph’s. It’s a place where you can get just about everything you need – coffee, food, gas, beer and Lottery tickets, and most importantly, updates on what is going on in the country.
The weather is a popular topic as after a cool wet summer we have seen the coldest December on record. Markets seem to be trending higher, but some have had to sell fewer and lighter hogs due to poor corn quality due to molds and mycotoxin. This could be a difficult year for workers on the slat level. Some growers have corn with aflatoxin, zearalenone, ochratoxin and deoxynivalenol (DON) or Vomitoxin. Besides that, many have low test weight.
This corn crop is similar to my high school’s basketball team, our coach said we were both short and slow. The effect on hog producers with mycotoxin is similar to drought on corn producers – those that have it, suffer, but those that don’t do a little better as the shortage causes price to rise. Some of the guys that sell to the ethanol plant report that they are being tested for mycotoxin on every load and if they fail they are told to drop back to the end of the line as the next sample taken may be negative.

Hindsight would say that January through September of 2009 was about as perfect for raising hogs as you could have – excellent temperatures and corn quality. Perhaps we raised more weight and numbers than any other time period. Next year at this time we will know what effect this year’s feed and weather had on sow productivity. The good news is that according to Ron Plain we have the smallest national sow herd since the 1800’s.