Wean-to-Market Wins along the Path to ONE MORE PIG |
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Ron Rush and Dr. Whitney Lincoln recently highlighted several key wins from the wean-to-market team.
First, they have successfully transitioned to a “pod” leadership structure—ten senior supervisors, each with four supervisors, creating ten teams of five. Each pod takes a team approach to caring for the pigs at 80 sites instead of one supervisor overseeing 20 sites alone.
The structures also allow for a routine cadence of site visits. Each wean-to-market site and our managers and caretakers benefit from two weekly supervisor visits for the first six weeks post-wean pig placement, followed by a similar approach after feeder pig placement. This helps get more eyes on the pigs, catch problems earlier and better support the site managers.
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This new organizational method draws on the strengths of each team member, and team meetings are held with members of the health services and maintenance teams. Coordinating feeder pig movements, feed ordering, vaccinations, site visit schedules, site inspections and marketing is now easier.
The restructure also allows the team to execute full wash inspections, ensuring that our sites are thoroughly cleaned and sanitized and that site setup inspections are conducted to verify that the farms are ready (temperature, environment, farm supplies, feeder settings and water settings, etc.) are perfect for the pigs—great job to all those teams and senior supervisors for driving good organizational change. More communication and better coordination equals better pig care.
Other efforts the wean-to-market team is making include evaluating and documenting wean-pig quality, documenting and castrating boars (we talked about this a few issues ago) and obtaining physical counts of every feeder pig placement, as every decision we make is on inventory (feed budgets, marketing plans, stocking plans). When you measure things, you can manage them and improve, and now we have better data—by sow farm—on boars found in wean-to-market, scrotal hernias and belly ruptures.
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Key Win! Our 8% Club is growing. Last year, we recognized 223 wean-to-market groups that closed out (marketed all pigs at the site) with 8% or less mortality. Through April of this year, we’ve had 100 sites in the club, which means we are on pace to have well over 300 closeouts at 8% or less mortality this year. Great job to our wean-to-market site managers!
Key Win! Our close-out crews have fixed nearly 40 sites this year, which means all of the site’s tickets have been addressed, and the site is left “as new” as possible—great job to the maintenance team, H2A crews and H2A crew leads for the great help and support.
Key Win! Marketing and space utilization is improving. We’re seeing a younger “undoublestock” age, which means half of the pigs placed in a wean-to-market or nursery site are moving to their finishing site at a better targeted timeframe which influences their access to resources for better growth.
Key Win! We are strategically single stocking flows that need more attention from managers to better save more pigs in the long run.
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Key Win! They’ve kicked supervisor training into overdrive! Technical skills and ability to communicate those needs is a key part of both people and pig care. We recently hosted wean-to-market site managers meetings, and Ron and Dr. Lincoln are also organizing supervisors to receive training around seasonal topics before the needs. The last meeting in May focused on air movement, water accessibility, biosecurity, wean pig health in the summertime.
Key Win! Mortality is decreasing/steady, with early (0-60 day) mortality dropping the most significantly. As Ron says, “Healthier young pigs make healthier older pigs.”
We are turning a corner—keep up the great work, teams!
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In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) |
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Successful Swinesight 2024
A huge thank you to our Production Well-Being team and production leaders for completing over 20 SwineSight sessions! These regional trainings offered Pork Quality Assurance (PQA) Plus recertification as well as animal well-being training. The training comprised of 6 interactive stations that included many props to help educate and give refreshers on practices that are incredibly important to all of us at Iowa Select Farms, like biosecurity, daily observations, animal handling, nutrition, food safety, and health.
Over the next few weeks, we'll recap each station and its importance to the people and animals at Iowa Select Farms.
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During the " biosecurity state of mind" station, the PWB team had a neat activity to demonstrate the key areas of biosecurity: cleanliness, people entry, pig movements, rodent control, and site security. The activity had us all guessing the number correlated to each investment ISF makes towards biosecurity excellence.
Biosecurity excellence is the third pillar of our ONE MORE PIG initiative, and it is so valuable for protecting our pigs.
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Let's examine the ways in which biosecurity impacts our system on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.
- 2,925 buckets of laundry detergent distributed each year
- 240 truck washes per day
- 1,700 people entries per day
- 50,000 people entries per month
- 955,400 pigs moved each month
- 4,258 pig loads each month
- $228,325 invested in rodent bait each year
- 735 cameras throughout our production system
- 866 padlocks distributed throughout our production system
The cost of biosecurity? Priceless!
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Let's talk about Bruno!
Bruno is our new biosecurity mascot and embodies all aspects of biosecurity. He's made of many items that impact biosecurity allowing all of us to find something to relate to or understand his impact. Numerous factors must be considered in biosecurity, and it is crucial that we maintain a Bruno-level biosecurity mindset every day!
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Recognizing the Hard Work and Dedication of Our Employees
During the recent production management meeting, senior leaders and all attendees shared their love and appreciation for the efforts of each department. It was so fun, and we wanted everyone to know and hear how much they are appreciated. Let’s hear what they had to say about the gilt development and maintenance team.
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- Great communication with the maintenance team
- All production teams are working to increase lead time on movements which allows improved planning and increased efficiency for transport
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- All their hard work, top notch pig care and Bruno-level biosecurity
- Big thanks to all the GDUs that took time to sit down with the PWB and leadership teams that showed up to go over all the Biosecurity changes and how to move forward implementing those
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- Getting Hunt and Wood cleaned up on quick notice to put clean animals in
- Executing depops for S8, S112, S39, S24 and now S14
- For giving us Craig Whalen sincerely…the WTM team
- Setting up to do all the breed projects needed for herd closures
- Continued improvements regarding communication with the transportation team
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- The renewed focus on preventative maintenance
- Seeing lots of tickets being knocked out while keeping up with the day-to-day issues
- Big thanks to Wes and his team for coming out early Saturday morning a few weeks ago to help with the tornado damage at Roger North so they could get the pigs moved – Wes left state bowling in Davenport to come back and run the show and we greatly appreciated it!
- Getting wind breaks closed in
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- Laying out a plan for cool cells starting up
- Implementing a weekly schedule and communicating it all parties involved
- All the work around the ticket prioritization and working to get critical items addressed – Level 1 ticket response has been much improved!
- Good communication between maintenance and the growers/supervisors to achieve the ultimate goal of whats best for the pigs – appreciate the response time and efforts around all the facilities
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- Shout out to Cody for going above and beyond to understand the research site equipment
- Have stepped up and came in clutch with some issues in the GDUs to ensure they can keep rolling
- Closeout crews are doing great work!
- Always willing to give technical support on easy fixes when production has questions
- When they attend the WTM pod meetings, they listen to the changes in protocols and are another set of eyes to see issues
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BEST PRACTICE: Summer Swine Shows
Summer is here! Which means it's fair season and the Iowa State Fair will be here before we know it!
As employees and contractors planning to visit the Iowa State Fair, county fair or show pig event, we'll need to be mindful of biosecurity to protect the health of our pigs.
We ask that all employees and contractors follow the biosecurity guidelines laid out in the Best Practice.
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Mike Rauch Promoted to Senior Wean-to-Market Supervisor
Congratulations to Mike Rauch on his recent promotion to Senior Wean-to-Market Supervisor for Western Iowa. Mike has been with us for 5 years, most recently holding the position of Wean-to-Market Supervisor. When he's not working, Mike enjoys spending time with family and watching the Iowa State Cyclones. He lives in Denison with his wife, Rhonda, and two children, Zachary and Kayla. Way to go, Mike!
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Kalob Matheny Promoted to Wean-to-Market Supervisor
Kalob has been with Iowa Select Farms for 1.5 years and was recently promoted to Wean-to-Market Supervisor. Prior to his new role, he was a Multiplication Supervisor. When Kalob isn't working, he enjoys fishing, hunting, watching sprint car racing, and spending time with family. Kalob lives in Bedford with his wife and two sons. They will welcome a third boy to the family in a few short weeks! Congratulations, Kalob!
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Erick Hernandez Promoted to Crew Services Supervisor
Congratulations to Erick Hernandez on his recent promotion to Crew Services Supervisor. He has been with Iowa Select Farms for a little over a year and was a dedicated Environmental Maintenance team member prior to his new role. Erick lives in Hampton with his dog, Tido. When Erick isn't working, he enjoys playing soccer, cooking, and going on adventures. Way to go, Erick!
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New Items Added to the Company Clothing Store!
Have you visited the company clothing store recently? We've added new items for men, women and children you will be sure to love!
Username: ISF_Clothes
Password: Clothes
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Joke of the Week
What pigs sailed the high seas?
Pigrates and Baconeers!
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This Week's Years of Service
Check out all of the employees below celebrating their work anniversaries this week and last week. If you see these folks out and about, be sure to congratulate them!
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30 Years
Brian Qualley, Gene Transfer Centers Supervisor
21 Years
Dan Roth, Wean-to-Market Supervisor
16 Years
Joe Becker, Sow Farm Manager Sow 016 Parker
12 Years
Hebert Aragon Nunez, Breeding Department Head Sow 037 Primrose
9 Years
Katie Coleman, Director of Biosecurity
7 Years
Garrett Juelsgaard, Breeding Department Head Sow 011 Stockdale
Mario Orozco Hernandez, Sow Farm Manager Sow 004 Kramer Sow
Travis Weland, GDU Manager GDU 018 Davis #1
Jose Gomez Gomez, Farrowing Department Head Sow 039 Yale
Erica Shields, Assistant Farrowing Department Head Sow 029 Thayer
5 Years
Julio Cruz Beltran, Assistant Breeding Department Head Sow 117
Luis Rodriguez Sena, Heat Check / AI Specialist Sow 113
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4 Years
Dalia Guadarrama Villa, Breeding Lead Sow 116
Jose Ortega Torres, Breeding Lead Sow 012 Kielsmeier
Samael Gonzalez Rodriguez, Assistant Farrowing Department Head Sow 004 Kramer Sow
Antonio Paulin Mendoza, Breeding Lead Sow 114
2 Years
Alberto Delgado Rivera, Breeding Lead Sow 117
Josselyne Salgado Rogel, Breeding Lead Sow 116
Juan German Estrada, GTC Specialist Boar 005 Cheers
1 Year
Jose Alberto Ramos Martinez, Breeding Lead Sow 039 Yale
Hugo Angel Ponce Cordova, Breeding Lead Sow 003 Stumme
Irma Delia Avilez Hernandez, Breeding Lead Sow 115
Ben Lynch, Nutrient Service Manager
Richard Johnson, Transportation Mechanic
Jennifer Meadors, Animal Caretaker GDU 688 Stamps
Allyson Beninga, Nutrient Service Manager
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Internal Job Openings
Looking for a new role within Iowa Select Farms? Check out what you may have missed last week. To see a list of our current and new job openings and information on applying, click here or contact Human Resources at 641-648-4479.
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On-Call Maintenance Schedule
Stay up-to-date with the on-call maintenance schedule and never lose track of its location. This schedule can be found here, and it will continually be updated in real-time.
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Key Contacts
Iowa Select Farms Animal Welfare Concern Line: 800-884-6659
(Third Party) Iowa Farm Animal Care Coalition Hotline: 800-252-0577
Employee Assistance Program 24/7 Hotline: 800-327-4692
Login information is:
USERNAME: isf_clothes
PASSWORD: Clothes
Employee Award Nominations:
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