Producer to Producer: Indiana farm manager shares real life perspective from the barn

Mar 17, 2025

Tim Burnside, swine farm manager at I & S Furrer Farms in Wolcott, Indiana, spoke at the Four Star Veterinary Service Pork Industry Conference in Muncie, Indiana, to share his experience as a swine farm manager. After his presentation, he spoke with The Pig Site's Sarah Mikesell about his on-farm experiences.

Tell us about I & S Furrer Farms.
We have about 1,800 sows and are a farrow-to-finish operation with three finishing facilities. At any given time, we have 24,000 to 25,000 animals on feed.

I oversee farm management and leave the physical work to his team. One of my responsibilities is lining up the pig marketing, which can be challenging.

alt text

You have to make appointments to send market animals anymore, and we sell five days a week, but sometimes six or seven loads a week, and wean about 1,100 pigs every week. I’d really like finishing space for about 2,000 more pigs. I keep the facilities really full, so we need at least two more weeks’ worth of finishing space.

We are a closed herd and raise our own breeding stock on the farm. I really like that concept, and I think it’s helped our productivity quite a bit.

Click here to see more...

Video: What Does 20 MILLION Hogs a Year Look Like?

?? The Multi-Plant System Processing 20 Million Hogs Annually in the Midwest JBS USA operates multiple large-scale pork processing facilities across the Midwest, including major plants in Iowa, Minnesota, and Indiana. Combined, these facilities have the capacity to process approximately 20 million hogs annually.

Each plant operates high-speed automated slaughter systems capable of processing up to 20,000 head per day, followed by fabrication lines that break carcasses into primals, sub-primals, and case-ready retail products.

Hog procurement is coordinated through electronic marketing platforms that connect regional contract finishing operations and independent producers to plant demand schedules. This digital procurement system allows for steady supply flow and scheduling efficiency across multiple facilities.

Processing plants incorporate comprehensive food safety systems, including pathogen intervention technologies, rapid chilling processes, and integrated cold-chain management. USDA inspection is embedded throughout the harvest and fabrication stages to ensure regulatory compliance and product integrity. Finished pork products — from bulk primals to retail-ready packaged cuts — are distributed through coordinated logistics networks serving domestic and export markets.