Farms.com Home  › News

Missouri family adapts into hog production

Matt Stubblefield is adamant about the fact that he is a cattleman, not a hog farmer. But with generations of pork producers in his family, raising hogs was just a part of the farm operation.

“The hog barn on my father-in-law’s property was built by his grandpa in the 1950’s or ‘60’s,” said Matt’s wife, Rockael.

Like many farming operations in the mid- to late-1900’s, raising a few feeder pigs was standard for the Cuba, Missouri family. Matt’s great-great-grandpa would feed out about 1,000 head each year, according to his dad, Drew. Eventually, the Stubblefields started raising their own pigs and moved their sows to a pasture setting.

Going in and out of the hog business a few times, the family re-entered the business in the late 1990’s when Drew bought a gilt at the 4-H youth auction and bred her to a neighbor’s Poland China boar. Hogs have resided on the operation ever since.

Click here to see more...

Trending Video

Season 7, Episode 4: Using Data to Better Manage PRRSV

Video: Season 7, Episode 4: Using Data to Better Manage PRRSV

PRRS continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing pork producers, but each outbreak can also provide valuable information about herd recovery, losses and the management decisions that follow.In this episode, Dr. Ana Paula Serafini Poeta Silva, a research scientist at Iowa State University, discusses the PRRS Outbreak Management Program, or POMP, and what researchers have learned from a database containing information from more than 700 breeding-herd outbreaks. She explains how POMP uses data from individual outbreaks to establish benchmarks producers can use to better understand what to expect during recovery, including potential losses and the time it may take for a herd to return to baseline production. The conversation also explores how PRRS management has evolved, including the role of live virus inoculation and modified-live vaccines.