Episode 25: Swine Genetics with Randy Shipley
On this episode of the Maine Farmcast, Dr. Knight sits down and talks to Mr. Randy Shipley of Shipley Swine Genetics. Shipley Swine Genetics is a top Boar Stud operation that provides high quality semen, bred gilts, and boars to producers across the nation. Randy joined us here in Maine to deliver a youth swine judging clinic in Cumberland, Maine. While he was here, I wanted to hear more about his story, operation, and his take on cross breeding pigs, boar selection, and artificial insemination.
Episode Resources
- Learn more about Shipley Swine Genetics
Automated Transcript
Colt Knight: 00:30
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I’m your host, Dr. Colt Knight, associate extension professor and state livestock specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. And I am joined today by mister Randy Shipley of Shipley Swine Genetics in Ohio. And it’s a great pleasure to have Randy here. I’ve been using Randy’s genetics for my personal swine herd for the last several years, And, I thought it would be great if we could have Randy on, and he could talk a little bit about himself and and, you know, bore selection and and how to improve some production efficiency on our small backyard and pasture raised pork jobs.
Colt Knight: 01:09
Randy, it’s great to have you.
Randy Shipley: 01:11
Oh, good to be here. My first time in Maine, and and so far, I’ve had a really, really good time.
Colt Knight: 01:15
That’s awesome. So yesterday, Randy helped us with a youth swine judging clinic. So we got the kids involved, and we’re teaching them all about how to judge pigs and all the criteria that goes into that and and picking pigs that are good for production and for the show ring. But, Randy, how did you get into the pig business?
Randy Shipley: 01:35
Oh, gosh. It’s been a long, long time ago. You know, when I was a freshman in high school, I don’t even want to tell you when that was, it’s been a long time ago, I had to have a project. And so ended up deciding on hogs and ended up deciding on duroc hogs. And so bought a couple gilts, in the state of Ohio.
Randy Shipley: 01:59
Kind of a cute story. When we went to pick them up, they kept them and bred them for me. And when my dad and I went and picked them up, he decided to buy a couple also and, and they were bred. And so we brought our gilts home and they were all due, just right at the 1st year. The first couple were due on January 1st and we had very little in the way of facilities and so consequently we lost every pig.
Randy Shipley: 02:33
And so that was kind of a rough start, but we just continued right on going. That kind of formed a little bit of a partnership. And then out from 68 through today, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So
Colt Knight: 02:47
Well, I would say you’re one of the premier bore studs there.
Randy Shipley: 02:52
Yeah. You know, in the late nineties, 96, 97, I decided I wanted to get into the borestud business. And, you know, it’s been 25, 26, 27 years ago, so I was a lot younger, and I had some pretty big ambitions. And I wanted to be one of, if not the best. And and at that time, there was probably, 4 majors.
Randy Shipley: 03:19
And so my goal, was to be one of the one of the 4 majors. And I don’t know if I ever got to it or not. It doesn’t make any difference. For for several years, we we, fought pretty hard and and bought some boars that were really, really high profile and and, and sold a lot of semen. And as we’ve continued in, this thing, I’ve we’ve added a lot of boars.
Randy Shipley: 03:47
We run about 60 boars that we collect, and, we still try to service everybody. Yeah. We we want to have some of the best ones. Trouble is what I think sometimes the best and what is selected in the sure ring is the best. Sometimes I disagree.
Randy Shipley: 04:09
And we’ve branched off just a little more into servicing, and selling semen to lots of people. You know, and and I tell my competition, and and I’m good friends with most of the guys that have bigger boar studs, And I tell them guys you’re messing up. You know, there’s 100 and 100 and 100 of people that wanna buy show pig type semen, but there’s 1,000 and 1,000 and 1,000 that wanna buy, meat quality semen, production semen, whatever. And, you know, when we first started selling semen, you was really busy in the fall and somewhat busy in the spring. Course of fall was making all those spring pigs and and the, the spring was making pigs for, basically show pigs for guys in the southwest.
Randy Shipley: 04:59
Yes. And that was a big season for us too, but it was about a third the size of a regular fall. And, since we started changing things around and and, and trying to service the entire industry, we’re just busy all the time. Mhmm. And so, like right now, you know, here we are midsummer, we’re sending out roughly about a 100 boxes a week of semen across the country.
Randy Shipley: 05:26
You know, in the fall when we get really, really, really busy, we’ll be sending out about 250 to 300 boxes a week. And so but, yeah, it keeps us busy and pays the bills.
Colt Knight: 05:38
So in addition to the, the boar studs and all the semen sales you have, how many, pigs do you raise to sell, like replacement gilts or bread gilts?
Randy Shipley: 05:48
Yeah. We do a lot of bred gilts. I don’t know if we’re the biggest bread gilt producer or seller in the country. Far as I know, we are. At least the purebred into things, definitely, we are.
Randy Shipley: 05:59
I always tell guys we’ve never sold a 1,000 bred Gilts in a year, just because we don’t have them. But we’ll normally be in that 8, 900 range on breads. But, you know, we’re kind of set up for it. We’ve got several cargo floors that we’re running the gilts on. We’ve got a couple of guys that that’s all they do is check heat and breed sows and breed gilts.
Randy Shipley: 06:26
And then with the Boarstud, we’ve got all the semen. And so it just kind of it’s kind of worked into a natural, we’ve advertised bredgilts and we actually years ago had bredgilt sales. But we had our last sale in 98. And, of course, that’s when hogs were like 5¢ a pound and and actually the bred guilt sold very, very well on that sale, but I canceled the next sale, which was scheduled for March because hogs were 5, 6, 7¢. And, and we sent out a letter, we went ahead and bred like a 100 gilts and and we did that thinking, you know, maybe we’ll just add them to the herd, you know, and so we’re a little selective on what we kept and bred.
Randy Shipley: 07:17
And, and, so then, once we had them bred for a couple of months, we went ahead and sent out letters to tell people we had canceled the March sale because we’d had it for several years in a row. And, but I also listed a list of bred guilts that we had, that we could, you know, they could get if they wanted. And and I think I was probably the most shocked of of anybody. You know, those letters went out on a Monday, and by the following weekend, all 100 grade gilts were sold. And I thought, wow.
Randy Shipley: 07:50
We can do this without having a sale, you know. And and sales are quite expensive, you know. You and dummy me, I always have to advertise a lot. And so, you know, we spend, I don’t know, 10, 15,000 in advertising and then, you know, all the preparation for the sales. And and so, you know, all of a sudden, we canceled the September sale.
Randy Shipley: 08:13
And, just we just continued to do that for 3 or 4 years, sending out letters, letting people knows what we what we had bread. And and then it just kind of evolved into, you know, when we’d send out a boar stud book, we have a page in there that, you know, says, you know, order your bred gilts now, you know, if you want them to do now, you know, this month, this month, this month, this month. And, we haven’t sent litters out for years, and and, people just call in and tell us when they what they want and when they want them bread. And, you know, we have 4 different price categories, and so they they select all that stuff. They can select the boar they want them bred to, what price category they wanna be in, and and, and when they want them to do, and we try to get that done.
Randy Shipley: 08:57
So so, yeah, that’s a big part of our business too. It’s about 5050. Yeah. We run about a 150 sows. We’ve been bigger than that at times, and it just doesn’t fit our operation.
Randy Shipley: 09:12
In order to do that, we’d have to increase some barns and and at my age, I’m just not gonna do that. But, but, yeah, everything keeps kinda kinda rolling. So about 50% of our income is semen sales and about 50% is the selling of pogs. So
Colt Knight: 09:31
And do you sell feeder pigs or
Randy Shipley: 09:33
sell all to
Colt Knight: 09:34
the meat market?
Randy Shipley: 09:35
Yeah. We sell a lot to the meat market, and feeder pigs both. We’ve got room to finish a 1,000 head at a time. And so when we, you know, our intentions are to do that. And then, from time to time, people wanna buy feeder pigs, especially the Berkshires, and we actually send several Berkshire feeder pigs to Maine.
Randy Shipley: 10:01
We’ve got a couple customers that come down and get some pretty good sized groups of them. And, so, yeah. We if people want to buy them as feeder pigs, we’ll sure do that. We we never sell any females as feeder pigs. We keep them all and breed them.
Randy Shipley: 10:17
But the but the male hogs, we sure will. Mhmm. But, yeah.
Colt Knight: 10:22
Alright. Well, since we have you here, I I thought it would be great to talk about maybe the swine industry here in Maine and and how folks could improve their production efficiencies even on a small scale.
Randy Shipley: 10:36
Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 10:37
You know, Maine is a a small state. We have mostly small farms. We don’t have livestock options and sale barns like Mhmm. You know, most of the Midwestern states. You would Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 10:48
You’re basically in the commercial commodity market.
Randy Shipley: 10:51
Sure.
Colt Knight: 10:51
And up here, we don’t have those options. And so most things are direct sales. So a farm may get pigs because they were a beef farm or an egg farm, and they’re looking to diversify their farm store or something. So they’ll they’ll grab a couple feeder pigs, or maybe they they buy a a sow or something, and then they’re going to raise that in some kind of niche market, whether it be all natural, organic, heritage breed, pasture raised. You know, the cost of production up here is so high with the cost of feed and energy and everything.
Colt Knight: 11:26
We have to compete in a different market share than than most commercial pig producers will. And a lot of folks are choosing heritage breed pigs, you know, and a lot of those heritage breed pigs can take up to a year or more. You know, some can take up to 2 years 2
Randy Shipley: 11:44
years here.
Colt Knight: 11:45
To get to the 250
Randy Shipley: 11:47
Right.
Colt Knight: 11:47
275 pounds. And if you got something like a Hereford or a guinea hog, they might not even ever make that weight.
Randy Shipley: 11:55
Right. Right. Right. And and, you know, I I get asked that question a lot. We get of a lot of phone calls wanting heritage breed semen, and and and I like to visit with those pigs or those folks, when they call.
Randy Shipley: 12:16
You know, the 2 main breeds, meat quality breeds would be your Durocs and your Berks of your purebred lines. And your heritage breed hogs, you know, basically are older fashioned type hogs. And Lard production is what they were designed for. Yeah. And and yes.
Randy Shipley: 12:40
And lard they do have. Yeah. You know, and I always ask those folks, you know, I said, guys, you know, I know what you’re after, you’re after meat quality. But at the same time, do you want to feed it for 2 or 3 years, or do you want it to actually have some performance value to it? And and, well, just yesterday at the program you had up here, we were talking to a couple of the ladies about that, and and they said, yeah, you know, we’ve got this hog and we’ve got that hog, but when we butcher those hogs, there’s like 5 inches of back fat, and, you know, the loin eye is an inch and a half or 2 inches, and there’s just no meat.
Randy Shipley: 13:25
And that’s exactly what I try to share with people and tell people, you’ve got to you know, there’s not a thing wrong with those heritage breeds, and I and I like what you guys are doing, and I think it’s really neat. And and, you know, you can have any sales advantage you need to to sell your product, but but still at the same time, we we need meat and and, you know, people don’t sit down to a a plate full of fat. You know? They they want a a pork chop that’s at least, you know, at least 4 inches, if not 5 or 6. And and by using some of the newer type genetics, not necessarily show genetics, and and people think of show genetics of being the new type of hogs, and that’s just not true.
Randy Shipley: 14:13
But the new type of hogs where they’ve got a lot more meat, a lot less fat, and then we’re trying to put as much fat in these pigs as we can. We want it to be intermuscular fat, so, instead of exterior fat. And the exterior fat when you butcher a hog just gets cut off. The the anterior fat is what gives you your flavoring and your meat quality, and and you just get so much more meat. But those two breeds for us have been very, very popular.
Randy Shipley: 14:45
They’re very popular with with the folks with, with smaller places, where they’re raising meat to sell to their neighbors and and around their area. Those would be the 2 main breeds we sell the most of.
Colt Knight: 15:01
And I think those Berkshires and Durocs on a small scale or or pasture raised system have some real distinct advantages. 1, they both really are heritage breeds. Those are breeds
Randy Shipley: 15:13
that have been around for a really long time. Long, long time. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 15:15
You know, and the Berkshire is the oldest breed registry in in the world.
Randy Shipley: 15:18
In the world. Yep.
Colt Knight: 15:20
And they were selected for meat quality in, like, the 14 1500.
Randy Shipley: 15:24
Oh, yeah.
Colt Knight: 15:26
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are good pigs.
Randy Shipley: 15:28
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 15:29
But those pigs also kinda kept up with production standards. Right?
Randy Shipley: 15:33
They have. Now, you know, anytime anytime you get a breed of hogs that gets popular, especially in the showing type world, you know, they’re gonna try to design and and, and make those hogs look the way they want them for a sure ring, but there are literally thousands and thousands of Berkshires that, are really, really, really good hogs that would work so well in backyard production. And meat quality will be just as good and or better. You know, a year ago was able to secure a bore and get him brought to the bore stud, And and he had quite a bit more fat on him than what would be normal in a bore stud setting. But, he weighed £475@7a half months and had just a little under 2 inches of back fat and a big thick, big robust rib hog that just grew grew lights out.
Randy Shipley: 16:45
And and and then, you know, had partner 7 inch loin eyes. So those are the type of hogs we like to put in the boar stud, you know, and promote to to you folks from equality hogs. That particular boar, his genetic line has been tested from equality for several years and would be in the top, you know, top 2, 3, 4 percent of the breed. So, no, I think, you’re definitely on track, Colt. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 17:16
Yeah. And and just for the folks that are maybe getting started into pigs, or they they’re in some of more of the the old world genetics right now, Let’s take something like a Gloucester old spot pig. Yep. You know, they’re gonna be 8, 9 months old before they hit slaughter weight.
Randy Shipley: 17:33
Oh, no. More than that probably.
Colt Knight: 17:34
And maybe
Randy Shipley: 17:35
Oh, yeah. Probably a year and a half.
Colt Knight: 17:36
Yeah. And so Yeah. You’re keeping that pig longer. You have to limit feed that pig on a day to day basis or it’s just gonna put on solid fat. Alright.
Colt Knight: 17:46
And no muscle growth hardly at all. It’ll just be Right. Fat as a as a tick. You end up spending more money on feed because you’re feeding it longer.
Randy Shipley: 17:58
Sure.
Colt Knight: 17:58
Sure. Even though it’s eaten less per day.
Randy Shipley: 18:02
Well and those hogs a lot of those hogs will actually eat more per day. Yeah. You know, if you’re putting meat on a pig, maybe it’ll take 2 and a half, 3 pounds of a feed to put on a pound of meat, and it’ll take an extra pound or 2 to put on fat. Yeah. And because fat doesn’t weigh as much.
Randy Shipley: 18:22
And, and then you’re just gonna cut it off in the end because it’s all exterior fat. It’s not interior fat.
Colt Knight: 18:30
And so you’re raising that pig for an extra year. You’re gonna end up spending you’re gonna have more invested in that pig. But the other thing is is there’s an increased chance of death, loss, or sickness.
Randy Shipley: 18:44
At any time.
Colt Knight: 18:44
I mean, you’re if you’re keeping them longer,
Randy Shipley: 18:47
that Or just
Colt Knight: 18:48
just increases as well.
Randy Shipley: 18:49
Yep. Just basic injury. Yep. You know? You run them out on pasture and you think, well, they you know, pigs love it on pasture.
Randy Shipley: 18:55
They run around. They play. They’re you know, that’s that’s where I wanna be if I’m a pig. I wanna be out on pasture. But then those pigs, you know, they’re rooting up the ground and and they’re stepping in holes.
Randy Shipley: 19:06
And and then it then it rains and then it gets cold and then you have ice and and, you know, there’s just a lot more possibility of injury.
Colt Knight: 19:16
You know? Or you can raise the Berkshire, Duroc, or or some other
Randy Shipley: 19:23
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 19:24
Modern genetics.
Randy Shipley: 19:26
Right.
Colt Knight: 19:26
And they’re gonna hit 250 or 300 pounds at 6 months, 7 months.
Randy Shipley: 19:32
Right.
Colt Knight: 19:32
In our production system.
Randy Shipley: 19:33
Now in
Colt Knight: 19:34
our house, they’d do a little better than that. Right.
Randy Shipley: 19:36
Right. In our house, we want the we want the Durochs to be weighing about 250 pounds by the time they’re, a 150 days old. Mhmm. And the Berkshires are a little closer. They’re about 2, 3 weeks behind them.
Randy Shipley: 19:49
They’re they’re gonna get up closer to 175 or 80 days. And that doesn’t mean that every pig I have weighs 250 pounds at 5 months, but that’s our goal. Yeah. And we’ll have some way over that, some way under that. But by the time they’re 6 months old, they need to be gone.
Randy Shipley: 20:06
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if it’s meat production.
Colt Knight: 20:09
And and I raise my Birks to about 7 months old Mhmm. Because I’m wanting them in that, like, 3 20 average weight. Sure. Because I’ve noticed with my genetics, that’s when they you can start visibly seeing that marbling in the pork chops.
Randy Shipley: 20:24
Exactly.
Colt Knight: 20:24
You know, you they they still taste great when they’re younger, but when they get to that 7 months, that seems to be when they just start Yeah. It looks like a prime steak.
Randy Shipley: 20:33
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thick.
Randy Shipley: 20:35
Oh, when when you when that thing’s laying on the table and you all have all those fat lines running through it, I mean, you’re a really good cook. And, boy, those things, they’re they’re delicious.
Colt Knight: 20:47
You know, a prime pork chop cooked properly to the right temperature will give a prime rib eye steak a run for
Randy Shipley: 20:55
it. Oh, it will.
Colt Knight: 20:56
Yep. It really
Randy Shipley: 20:56
will. Yep. You know, I’ve ate pork chops my whole life, and and we’ve kind of got into just a handful of cattle, not very many, just just for fun. Yeah. I mean, we’re just raising them for meat quality and and and put in a freezer and and, now when we get a chance to have a big old t bone or whatever, boy, it really, really tastes good to me, but I’ve ate pork for the first 65 years.
Colt Knight: 21:23
And and all of our livestock species kinda suffered the same fate. In the 19 seventies, human doctors
Randy Shipley: 21:30
were
Colt Knight: 21:30
telling everyone red meat’s bad for you. You shouldn’t eat any fat. And so the industries responded by breeding all the fat out of our pigs, chickens, and cows.
Randy Shipley: 21:42
Yep.
Colt Knight: 21:42
And then in the early nineties, beef quality assurance program did an audit of consumers and found that one of 4 people that ate beef had a negative experience
Randy Shipley: 21:55
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 21:55
Because of the poor quality.
Randy Shipley: 21:56
Right. Didn’t like it.
Colt Knight: 21:57
So lean.
Randy Shipley: 21:58
Right.
Colt Knight: 21:59
And so the beef association did a really good job of promoting beef, educating consumers how to cook beef, and then educating producers on how to produce better quality beef. And, you know, within about 10 years, we turned that ship around.
Randy Shipley: 22:13
Oh, yeah.
Colt Knight: 22:14
And the pigs there for a while were trying to go the other route. They were, you know, advertising as the other white meat.
Randy Shipley: 22:21
The other white meat. Right.
Colt Knight: 22:23
And and, because people were feeding garbage and slop, they they could have trichinosis issues. So we had to cook those pork chops to, like, a 165 degrees.
Randy Shipley: 22:33
And if
Colt Knight: 22:33
you cook a no fat pork chop to a 165 degrees You got shoe leather. You gotta drown it in gravy or something, right, to make it palatable. So we didn’t do ourselves any favors,
Randy Shipley: 22:44
but the pork industry has now realized Right. Right. We need to put flavor back
Colt Knight: 22:45
in those
Randy Shipley: 22:48
Right.
Colt Knight: 22:48
We need to put flavor back in those pigs.
Randy Shipley: 22:50
They need to taste good. People need to wanna eat it.
Colt Knight: 22:52
Those traditional Landrace Yorkshire crosses are now getting bred with Durocs.
Randy Shipley: 22:57
A lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. You know, probably the main sire of of, and I don’t know what to tell you guys for sure, but I would say 70% of the meat that’s eaten today in this country is sired by Duroc boar probably. You know, the big commercial outfits where they got 40, 50, 60-million sows, They use landrace, Yorkshire type mothers, and then they breed them Duroc.
Randy Shipley: 23:22
Yep. And so essentially, they’re making an f2 . They’re not breeding cross on, cross on, cross on, cross on, cross. They’ve got a plan. And, yeah, it’s it’s really changed a lot.
Randy Shipley: 23:34
It’s really changed a lot.
Colt Knight: 23:35
And and that that kinda brings us to something we talked about yesterday is the efficiencies that we can gain with crossbreeding. So we’ve got our purebred breeds, you know, your borkshires, your durochs, Yorkshire, Landrace, all that. You know, traditionally, the commercial market bred Landrace and Yorkshire together because they had large litter sizes.
Randy Shipley: 23:59
Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 23:59
Lengthen the pigs so we got more bacon.
Randy Shipley: 24:02
Right.
Colt Knight: 24:02
But when you add that length to the pig, you can actually increase the litter size. You can you can carry more pigs.
Randy Shipley: 24:09
Sure.
Colt Knight: 24:09
You got more capacity there. So they were really focused on the number of piglets and the size of the bacon. Right?
Randy Shipley: 24:16
Right.
Colt Knight: 24:17
And not meat quality. Now we’re rotating in those Duroc bores so that we get those same characteristics, high litter sizes, more bacon, but now we’re putting meat quality back in. So Mhmm. Fat back in those. And we’re we’re making I went to the store the other day and was looking at just some store bought commercial pork chops, and they look really good.
Colt Knight: 24:38
Mhmm. Way better than I could get when I was a kid.
Randy Shipley: 24:40
Oh, yeah? Yeah. You know, and I have not went to store and looked at pork chops for years.
Colt Knight: 24:45
Oh, yeah.
Randy Shipley: 24:47
But yeah. But that’s very interesting.
Colt Knight: 24:50
But as but we were talking about this yesterday, like, for the show ring and things is if we take 2 breeds that have really good characteristics and we breed them together, that first generation, we call them f ones.
Randy Shipley: 25:05
The f ones. Uh-huh.
Colt Knight: 25:08
They have this thing called hybrid vigor. The heterosis is the technical name. But, basically, the sum is greater than the parents.
Randy Shipley: 25:20
Right. The offspring you’re gonna have, well, they’re gonna be tougher. They’re gonna perform at a higher level. And when you say tougher, you mean? The ability to survive.
Randy Shipley: 25:29
Yeah. The ability to survive. You know, up here in Maine, I’ve just been here a few days, but one day it’ll be 90, I think it was 97 degrees when I got off the airplane. This morning it was, what, 58, 59 degrees. So you got a 40 degree swing or a 35, whatever.
Randy Shipley: 25:50
Same thing is going to happen in the wintertime. Yep. A 40 degree day is going to be nice, but tomorrow morning might be 0. Unless you’ve got a totally inside facility, those pigs have got to adapt, you know, they’ve got to get used to 40 and then all of a sudden now we’re 0. And hogs can get pneumonia fairly easy.
Randy Shipley: 26:12
Of Of course, there’s it’s fairly easy to control also, but Scours and piglets is terrible
Colt Knight: 26:21
up here with these weather swings that we have.
Randy Shipley: 26:23
It would be. I noticed yesterday, one of the pigs that we were looking at, you know, it was just running out the back, you know. And, yeah, it makes it a lot more challenging. But anyhow, those hogs, when you cross them that first couple times, you’re just gonna make them tougher hogs. You know, you’re just gonna have more ability to fight off some of that stuff.
Colt Knight: 26:44
And they usually grow a little quicker.
Randy Shipley: 26:46
Oh, they grow a lot quicker if they if they yeah. When you when you’re crossing with touch. Yeah. The I explained to the kids yesterday a real simple way to understand genetics and I told them right at the beginning, you know, this is not true, guys, or part of it’s not true, but the idea will help you guys a lot to understand genetics. And I think the kids kind of enjoyed that.
Randy Shipley: 27:09
I know the parents did, but, yeah, your f1 are the first cross of 2 purebreds. Your f2 is when you take a purebred board and put it back on an f1 . And so and as you continue, and I don’t know who come up with the idea cold. I have no idea who come up with the idea of f1, f2, f3, f4, but basically that that tells you how many times that hog has been crossed. And there’s a little bit of an argument of when heterosis maximizes, when’s what’s the best.
Randy Shipley: 27:46
I’ve always believed in the F2s being that the ultimate as far as for growth and performance.
Colt Knight: 27:52
That seems to be when we get the most efficiencies, those three way
Randy Shipley: 27:55
terminal crosses the Yep. Yep. Now there’s people out there argue that it’s it’s the f threes, but I’ve I’ve never found that to be true.
Colt Knight: 28:03
There’s so much variation. So when Yeah. Once you cross breed to a certain point, the amount of variation becomes so wide
Randy Shipley: 28:12
Yep.
Colt Knight: 28:13
That even a single litter, you’re gonna have, like, from deep to really big.
Randy Shipley: 28:19
Right.
Colt Knight: 28:19
And Right. You know, as swine producers, consistency is key.
Randy Shipley: 28:23
It is. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 28:23
And so we can’t so there is a point that crossbreeding really improves your production.
Randy Shipley: 28:31
And there’s a point that it hurts it.
Colt Knight: 28:32
And there’s a point that it hurts it.
Randy Shipley: 28:33
It does.
Colt Knight: 28:33
And it seems to be that three way terminal cross. So you got you got your f1
Randy Shipley: 28:38
Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 28:38
Crossed with a purebred bull.
Randy Shipley: 28:39
Uh-huh. Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 28:41
Yep. And the pigs that you produce from that would all go to market. You wouldn’t keep them as replacement gilts.
Randy Shipley: 28:46
Right. You know, those hogs should be some of the best you raise. You just wanna be smart enough not to keep them. Mhmm. Not to keep them.
Randy Shipley: 28:54
And, you know, having a purebred saddle or 2 or 3 on your farm according to the number of hogs you’ve got has got value because then you can raise your own f1 females. You can take that Berkshire or Yorkshire or Landrace or whatever breed you wanna work with and and breed it to another breed and make f one females that you can put back into your program.
Colt Knight: 29:16
Yeah. And and as you said, whatever breeds you like.
Randy Shipley: 29:20
And right. Right.
Colt Knight: 29:22
If that’s your production system and you like those pigs, they all make good pork.
Randy Shipley: 29:27
Right. You know, it has a lot to do with how you feed them. Yep. It really does. There’s 2 or 3 pretty good size outfits that are raising a lot of Hampshires and I’ve bred them to be more of a meat quality type Hampshires.
Randy Shipley: 29:43
So we don’t talk a lot about Hamptures. I don’t think we’ve even mentioned them yet here on this broadcast, but but Hamptures can be very good hogs too. Typically, they don’t perform at quite as high a level. You know, Hamptures were known to be lean and heavy muscled. And,
Colt Knight: 29:59
So we saw them in the show ring a lot, but not so much in the production.
Randy Shipley: 30:04
Right. But but, you know, when you see a pig is black with a white stripe anymore, very seldom is it a Hampshire. You know, it’s a crossbred of whatever lines that you’re that they’re using. But people like the belted dogs for show picks. Yep.
Randy Shipley: 30:21
But pure belted hogs are not used very much in farrowing houses . You know? They maintain that color pattern you’re after, but they’re crossed up. Yeah. Yeah.
Randy Shipley: 30:32
Yeah. Yep. The one little girl yesterday, and it was a really good example, she had an exotic pig, which basically means it’s a sired by an exotic boar or show pig type of a boar. Most, I’d say 99% of those exotic boars have got the Patron breed and the Patron breed originated in Germany, and they would kinda be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the whole world. And, I am told in Germany that there are Patron lines that are very productive and very, very good.
Randy Shipley: 31:10
But what’s been selected and brought over here in the past, well, probably partner 30 years now, have been extremely muscular and and, not quite as not quite as sound on their feet and legs always, but but they use them to put big butts and big tops in show pigs, but that muscle’s hard and that muscle and it tastes bad. And, and that’s kind of gave the show ring people a little bit of a, you know, the you know, people think, well, I don’t want to eat a show hog. You know, they they don’t taste good. Well, in a lot of cases, they don’t. But anyhow, the point I was gonna get to is the the person that had this show type pig, it was born in January, and or so she said, and I’m sure she knew.
Randy Shipley: 31:56
And it was, what, quote, 50 pounds smaller than the than the York Landrace. More commercial looking type of a pig. And it
Colt Knight: 32:05
was a month older.
Randy Shipley: 32:06
And it was and it was born in February. Yeah. So, you know, but to perform but it was cross on, cross on, cross on, cross on, cross on, cross on, cross on, cross on, cross on, and they just don’t perform very well. Yeah. But but understand the genetics and and may have them work to your favor has got a lot of value.
Colt Knight: 32:21
Yeah. So we’ve talked about the advantages of crossbreeding and but one of the things that we didn’t talk about is the advantages of artificial insemination in our expensive production systems. I’ve done the math. It it can cost you upwards of 7, $800 to feed a boar for an entire year. And if you’ve only got 2 sows, you can order in some really, really high quality semen, and come out way ahead.
Randy Shipley: 32:49
Well, you know, the for a lot of people, the biggest cost in in their semen is the UPS chargers. You know?
Colt Knight: 32:57
Getting it cost me the last time I ordered semen from you, it cost as much
Randy Shipley: 33:01
for the semen.
Colt Knight: 33:02
There’s 4 doses of semen as what
Randy Shipley: 33:05
the shipping has charged. Right. Right. Right. The artificial is really I mean, it’s become quite the tool.
Randy Shipley: 33:13
I don’t know across the country. I would imagine now probably 99 point something percent of the sows in the United States are artificially bred.
Colt Knight: 33:23
All commercial pigs are commercially artificially bred.
Randy Shipley: 33:25
Every one of them. Yeah. And that’s what gets the numbers so high so fast, you know, 50,000 sows, 100,000 sows, you know, all these guys that have these mega farms. Yeah. Everything’s artificially bred.
Randy Shipley: 33:35
And so that gets the gets the percentage high real fast. But, you know, you don’t have to keep a boar. You get you can control your own genetics. The only thing you do have to do is you need to pay attention when they’re cycling. You know?
Colt Knight: 33:52
Yep. That’s the hardest part about artificial insemination across species, not just pigs.
Randy Shipley: 33:57
Right. Right. With everything. Right. Right.
Randy Shipley: 34:00
So if you’re good at heat detection, you’re gonna get along great with artificial.
Colt Knight: 34:04
Yeah. And most pigs are like clockwork. They do. If if you you catch their first two heat cycles let’s say you got an 8 month old guilt and she’s starting to come into heat and you mark it down on the calendar. And if she’s 20 or 21 days between those cycles, you can almost set your watch to it.
Colt Knight: 34:21
Can’t you?
Randy Shipley: 34:22
Yeah. You can. And and so 16, 17 days since our last cycle, you order your semen, and it’ll be there.
Colt Knight: 34:28
Just have it there overnight or
Randy Shipley: 34:29
the next day. Yeah. It’ll be there tomorrow. And, storage of the of the hog semen is very easy. It’s fresh.
Randy Shipley: 34:37
It’s fresh. You don’t have to have a tank. You’re gonna actually store that stuff, at roughly 64 degrees. 64 degrees with our extender that we use is perfect. Some extenders want you to keep it at 62.
Randy Shipley: 34:51
And an extender is just food for the semen, so we get extender in in little bags.
It’s usually
Colt Knight: 34:57
egg white based.
Randy Shipley: 34:59
Based. Yeah. That is true. Yep. And, we mix it with distilled water and, you know, giving up to the right temperature and then, and then mix the 2 together.
Randy Shipley: 35:10
So so extenders is basically food for your semen to
Colt Knight: 35:13
live off of. But yeah. If you order that extended semen, it’s really good for a week. And but it’s still effective for up to to 2 weeks or so.
Randy Shipley: 35:25
Oh, a lot of it is. You know, different boars will do differently, and and and we keep a real close eye on that. They’re at the, they’re at the farm. You know? Boars, you know, how long are they living?
Randy Shipley: 35:37
And in really, really, really hot weather, which in Maine, you guys are lucky you don’t have a lot of that, but in really hot weather, semen doesn’t live as long because the quality of semen coming out of the boars isn’t as good. Mhmm. And the same way breeding your sows. You know, in really, really hot weather, the sows typically don’t ovulate as well. They don’t cycle on the schedule quite as well as they do in cooler weather.
Randy Shipley: 36:03
Hogs like it to be a little cooler.
Colt Knight: 36:05
Yep. Yep. Yep. So if someone wanted to to order some semen, how would they find you?
Randy Shipley: 36:12
Well, you know, guys, there’s there’s there’s, you know, I’d said earlier, there’s when we first got started in the semen, the others, there was kind of like 4 majors and then several small guys. In today’s world, you can probably times that times a 1000 or buy or times a 100 easily. There’s there’s several boar studs across the country. If you’d like to buy semen off of us, just look up Shipley Swine Genetics on the Internet. We used to do a lot of paper advertising.
Randy Shipley: 36:46
We don’t do that anymore. My daughter’s my daughter and son-in-law has joined us now, and Facebook has taken over. At my age, that was hard for me to believe, but boy, it really, really has. But I would just hook up Chippy Swine Genetics and on the Internet, and it’ll give you your phone numbers. We’ve got toll free numbers.
Randy Shipley: 37:11
We’ve got well, guys, we got phone numbers on top of phone numbers. But, yeah, give us a call, and we’ll get it shipped out to you.
Colt Knight: 37:17
So one last question. What has been your favorite part about your visit to Maine so far?
Randy Shipley: 37:24
You know what? I guys, this has kind of been a bucket list, and and, don’t ask me why. There’s 2 places in the United States that I had never been that I wanted to go to. Maine was one of them. Then when Colt called me there in the spring or or late winter and asked me to come up, I said, oh, yeah.
Randy Shipley: 37:43
Yeah. I’ll do that in a heartbeat. I I I wanna come to Maine. And, so for the next couple of days, we’re going to, just kinda tour around and see what we can see and I think we fly home on Tuesday and and scratch off one bucket list. But, no, we’ve really enjoyed it.
Randy Shipley: 38:02
You know what? The the folks I’ve met have been fantastic. Yesterday, we had a little we had a seminar. We had several kids at. The kids were very eager to learn.
Randy Shipley: 38:13
When we first got started, they were all kind of a little shy, which I think is pretty normal. And by the end, the little 6 or 7 year old girl, she was asking as many questions as anybody. You know, they were everybody kinda opened up. We did a little judging and and and we talked about some of the differences and and, I pointed out some things that, they need to look at when they’re selecting some of their pigs, not only for production, but for for the kids that wanna to go to some of the county fairs. And, you know, my my goal was hopefully someone learnt something.
Randy Shipley: 38:51
And and I think I think they did, I think.
Colt Knight: 38:55
Yeah. The kids enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Yeah. The parents learned as much as the kids.
Randy Shipley: 39:00
You know that?
Colt Knight: 39:00
They gave it to me afterwards.
Randy Shipley: 39:01
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, raising livestock is no different whether you’re raising hogs or sheep or goats or cattle, you know, managing them properly, taking good care of them. And back to the subject of genetics just a little bit, you know, if you’re raising corn or if you’re raising, beans or if you’re raising whatever, it’s all about genetics. Mhmm.
Randy Shipley: 39:28
And and genetics is the same with everything. Trees, it’s all the same philosophy.
Colt Knight: 39:36
Genetics and nutrition.
Randy Shipley: 39:37
Yeah. Bingo.
Colt Knight: 39:38
If you don’t
Randy Shipley: 39:38
And care.
Colt Knight: 39:39
And then You know, the nutrition doesn’t do you any good without the genetics Nope. And the genetics don’t work unless they have the right nutrition.
Randy Shipley: 39:47
Right. That’d be true. That’s a 100% true. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 39:50
Well, Randy, it was great having you with us in the state of Maine, and we hope that you get to visit again sometime soon.
Randy Shipley: 39:56
And we look forward to everyone on the Maine Farmcast.
Colt Knight: 40:04
Howdy, folks. Dr. Knight here again. The Maine Farmcast would like to hear from you, so please send us your questions, comments, and suggested episodes to extension.farmcast@maine.edu. And once again, thanks for listening.
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