Aaron Wilson has been around hogs most of his life. Growing up, he helped out after school on his family’s 1,000-head finishing operation. Following high school, he worked at a farm during the day and trucked pigs to local processing plants at night. But it wasn’t long before he started his own corn and soybean farm and field tiling business.

“I didn’t have any ground at the time, but I knew I wanted to eventually build a swine barn of my own,” Wilson recalled.

It took three-and-a-half years, which included addressing regulatory and financial issues, but the 27-year-old entrepreneur finally realized his dream in September 2020, when he opened his own wean-to-finish facility in Wilkinson, Indiana. The new operation, West Camp Swine, has an H design consisting of two connected barns, each with a capacity of 2,480 market-size pigs.

The operation was designed and installed by a local AP dealer QC Supply Inc. and equipped with the latest technologies based on criteria from Wilson’s integrator, JBS Live Pork. Features include:

Mike Garner, who works in QC Supply project sales, noted that sophisticated ventilation and environment controls not only promote animal health, but also affect energy efficiency.

“In the JBS design specifications for this new facility, one of the major objectives was to reduce energy use,” he said. “Besides lowering operating costs, this contributes to the important goal of reducing our  carbon footprint to help protect the environment.”

Advanced controller technology

Wilson is also impressed with the operation’s EDGE controller, a single platform that controls all of the climate and feeding requirements for both barns. The controller is also linked to the AP weather station, which maximizes energy-efficient natural ventilation by monitoring wind direction, wind speed and rain to inform the controller of the outside environment.

EDGE also allows remote access via any web-enabled device, so Wilson can monitor and analyze data in real time and quickly respond to issues. That means freedom to leave the farm knowing that if a problem should occur, an alarm will be triggered and he will be immediately notified via text message or email, saving valuable time and money. 

That’s a big plus when he not only has the hog operation to manage, but also his row crop farm and tile business.

“I really like being able to get on my phone any time and see what’s going on,” Wilson said.

Looking ahead, Wilson said expansion might be a future possibility. “If things keep going well, I could see building another hog farm like this one someday.”