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Hog barn fire claims thousands of pigs

A devastating fire near Cudworth on Thursday night resulted in the loss of thousands of pigs.

The on-site barn manager called in the fire at about 7:00 p.m.

Reeve for the RM of Hoodoo Derreck Kolla says volunteer fire crews from Cudworth and Wakaw responded.

"They were hoping they could do a little more, but the problem was it just moved so fast."

The fire quickly spread through all four barns which were connected by hallways.

He notes the farrow-to-finish operation would have been at full capacity with about 12,000 pigs in the barn at any given time.

A group of local investors from the area, the Progressive Investment Group, started the operation in 1994.

The hog operation was established in 1994 by the Progressive Investment Group and at the time of the fire employed about a dozen people from the Cudworth and Wakaw area.

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US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Video: US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Eric van Heugten, PhD, professor and swine extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recently spoke at the Iowa Swine Day Pre-Conference Symposium, titled Soybean Meal 360°: Expanding our horizons through discoveries and field-proven feeding strategies for improving pork production. The event was sponsored by Iowa State University and U.S. Soy.

Soybean meal offers pig producers a high-value proposition. It’s a high-quality protein source, providing essential and non-essential amino acids to the pig that are highly digestible and palatable. Studies now show that soybean meal provides higher net energy than current National Research Council (NRC) requirements. Plus, soybean meal offers health benefits such as isoflavones and antioxidants as well as benefits with respiratory diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

One of several ingredients that compete with the inclusion of soybean meal in pig diets is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS).

“With DDGS, we typically see more variable responses because of the quality differences depending on which plant it comes from,” said Dr. van Heugten. “At very high levels, we often see a reduction in performance especially with feed intake which can have negative consequences on pig performance, especially in the summer months when feed intake is already low and gaining weight is at a premium to get them to market.”

Over the last few decades, the industry has also seen the increased inclusion of crystalline amino acids in pig diets.

“We started with lysine at about 3 lbs. per ton in the diet, and then we added methionine and threonine to go to 6 to 8 lbs. per ton,” he said. “Now we have tryptophan, isoleucine and valine and can go to 12 to 15 lbs. per ton. All of these, when price competitive, are formulated into the diet and are displacing soybean meal which also removes the potential health benefits that soybean meal provides.”