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NW Iowa. / SW Arizona | I put in the Osborne scale system back in the fall of 2004 in my 1200 finisher. Is it the perfect solution, no, would I do it again, probably. I don't use it to it's full potential meaning I don't make them go through the scales at about 100 lbs. like I used to. Now they have free range of the whole barn until about 2-3 weeks before they are ready to market. I love it for sorting hogs & so does my wife. I have had zero help loading out hogs including my wife ( which she really loves ) since 2004. Between the trucker taking the hogs at the truck entrance & myself we can very easily load a semi load ( 185-200 hd) in under 40 minutes. I never use a shocker just a paddle & I instruct my truckers if they want to use a buzzer not to buzz the hogs but do alow them to buss the ceiling to make some noise. I use a great trucker that I know my death loss & downers is so low I know I can count on one hand how many I have loss in transit since 2004. This is why I refuse to pay for insurance when I sell my hogs to packers. I know I am thousands of dollars ahead for not paying for insurance on trasportation.
The one true downside of scales are wear & tear on the scales. Hogs ARE hard on scales. This is the one reason why I don't make them go through them at an earlier age. I am deffinetly putting more money back into them to keep them working. Will I ever go back to sorting hogs manually again, absolutly not. If I had alot of labor sources to choose from I might consider it, that was hard to find before & I know from experiance this isn't gettnig easier. I do think the larger pens & having alleys to hold the hogs prior to market would be nice but I'd sure hate to do it in my one man operation. | |
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Out with the old in with the new remodel
