Answer: Temperature-controlled barns with some added insulation keep our pigs warm and healthy during the cold winter months.
Tropical vacation? Who needs that when you have heated hog barns to go into everyday!
Keeping our livestock warm is an important part of our daily chores in winter. My wife, Liz, has been ...
Answer: A farmer’s support system includes family, employees, and agribusiness people who assist with all aspects of the grain harvest.
As I look back upon this crop year, I cannot help but reflect upon the things that made it successful. There are many things that are out of a farmer’s control ...
Answer: Today many farms have GPS to guide machines through the field allowing farmers to use “auto-steer.” But a farmer still needs to keep an eye on things and manually steer at the ends of the field.
With auto-steer, the machine is set on a straight track (or line) and will ...
Answer: The biggest changes have been in farm size, technology, and production costs.
My Great-Grandfather Marsden Carey started this farm back in the 1950’s. He farmed with his sons, including my Grandfather Don Carey. Today, I farm along with my parents, John and Cindy (Carey) Baenziger, as a 4th generation farmer.
Grain ...
A strong work ethic helps us focus on our livestock chores along with schoolwork and sports.
This is Warren and Eli Schweitzer responding to this question as we now are back in school.
We are farm boys that raise livestock as 4-H projects. We also play football, basketball, and baseball. It is ...
My family shipped cattle to the Stockyards for several years. Now they sell directly to the packing companies and some directly to consumers.
Livestock production runs deep in the history of my Dermody family. My fondest childhood memories involve our farm and ranch operation in Iowa. My dad and brother currently ...
Answer: We plant corn, soybeans, wheat, hay, and sweet corn each year, rotating the location and acreage of crops. We use a portion of the corn, hay and wheat for cattle feed, and wheat straw for cattle bedding.
We typically plant the same five crops each year because we have a ...
Answer: We use a variety of soil conservation practices such as strip-till, no-till, reduced-till, cover crops, and grassed waterways to prevent soil loss/erosion and preserve soils.
“Essentially, all life depends upon the soil … There can be no life without soil and no soil without life.” Charles E. Kellogg
As DeKalb County ...
We are at the mercy of weather. We have to wait until field conditions are right to plant. If planting is delayed due to weather we may have to change seed varieties or shift crops.
Temperatures are warming, the snow is melting, and everyone is thinking spring! For grain farmers, this ...
We sell our beef cattle when they reach a market weight of about 1,500 pounds. Our beef is sold to Tyson, which can be found in grocery stores around the country.
Let’s start at the beginning of our beef cattle cycle. The cattle we buy for our feedlot are shipped here ...
