By Bruce Cochrane
Manitoba Pork has released a detailed estimate for building new finishing spaces to give pork producers considering new hog barn construction an idea of what they can expect in terms of cost.
On behalf of Manitoba Pork, DGH Engineering has prepared a detailed budget estimate to construct new hog finisher facilities under current market conditions, using typical 2,000 and 4,000 head finisher barns as models.
Andrew Dickson, the general manager of Manitoba Pork, says the goal of the project was to provide a detailed cost estimate that pork producers could use as a starting point when considering the construction of finishing spaces.
Andrew Dickson-Manitoba Pork:
The intent was to go through all the details of the design, what would be the required materials and the costs of doing the building, the construction site preparation and so forth so that producers would at least have a starting point from which they could try to estimate the real cost of trying to build a barn on their own property.
This has become quite controversial because costs have increased dramatically since 15 to 20 years ago on some items.
We have to be cost conscious and make sure that we're competitive with our counterparts in the United States.
It may be difficult for people in Manitoba to realize but in Iowa but every year they build something like 150 new barns, mostly just to replace their current stock as it wears out.
In Manitoba we've probably built 3 or 4 barns in the past 5 years and it's time now to start rebuilding our capacity, not only to replace barns that are worn out but also to improve the capacity to finish pigs in the province.
For more information on starting or expanding a pig farm in Manitoba visit Manitoba Pork's web site at manitobapork.com and search "dgh."
Source: Farmscape