Gallery: A look inside Pipestone System's latest sow multiplier, Delta Gilts.

Mindy Ward, Editor, Missouri Ruralist

June 8, 2017

20 Slides

Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series on the opening of Delta Gilts in southeast Missouri. Don't forget to read yesterday's story, Delta Gilts opens sow unit in southeast Missouri, about how grain availability and low swine density brought investors to this row crop region of the state. Then come back tomorrow to meet the shareholders of this new sow multiplier unit.

Before the pigs arrived, Delta Gilts opened the doors to the newest and largest hog facility in Scott County to educate the public about the everyday workings of a large confinement sow facility.

Delta Gilts is the latest sow facility to join the Pipestone System. This unit, which will house more than 5,500 sows, is the seventh Missouri sow farm of the shareholder-based Minnesota company. It serves as a multiplier unit, focusing on producing and raising replacement gilts for Delta Gilts and other customers buying gilts from PIC.

Individuals walked through farrowing barns, gestation rooms and even showers, asking questions. At the end of the tour, they were treated to a meal featuring pulled pork.

The company will do one more wash-down and disinfection of the unit before the pigs start filling the barns in mid-June.

Click on the slide show and take your own tour of this sow multiplier unit.

About the Author(s)

Mindy Ward

Editor, Missouri Ruralist

Mindy resides on a small farm just outside of Holstein, Mo, about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis.

After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism, she worked briefly at a public relations firm in Kansas City. Her husband’s career led the couple north to Minnesota.

There, she reported on large-scale production of corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and dairy, as well as, biofuels for The Land. After 10 years, the couple returned to Missouri and she began covering agriculture in the Show-Me State.

“In all my 15 years of writing about agriculture, I have found some of the most progressive thinkers are farmers,” she says. “They are constantly searching for ways to do more with less, improve their land and leave their legacy to the next generation.”

Mindy and her husband, Stacy, together with their daughters, Elisa and Cassidy, operate Showtime Farms in southern Warren County. The family spends a great deal of time caring for and showing Dorset, Oxford and crossbred sheep.

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