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By JOE SMEKENS
Right up to that fateful day when they are shipped off to the packing house, thousands of pigs are “living in the perfect environment,” at the Lee Farms complex in central Jackson Twp.
That’s how Bob Lee describes his huge hog operation located two miles south of McNatt. Lee is like many other farmers in the southern portion of the county who grew up on small farms which included 100 or so head of hogs.
In his younger days, that was the norm for your average farmer, but Lee, a 1974 graduate of Southern Wells High School, like his neighbors, the Leas brothers, and like many other young farmers in the county, has gone with the sign of the times with a king-size operation.
Lee’s hog farm, in fact, is one of the biggest in this part of the state as he can manage 17,500 hogs at a time on his 4-barn site.
The Lee barns are on two sites parallel to County Road 1000 South, with the first site going into operation just last December, while the second site had a full house of pigs in February.
The barns have a capacity of 4,320 pigs at one time.
“If we are going to feed the people of this country, we’ve got to do it this way,” Lee said of the trend towards combined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) such as his and numerous others in the county.
“This is still a family farm, but it’s also the way of the future,” Lee says of his operation, in which he raises hogs for Dykhuis Farms, Inc. out of Holland, Mich.
Lee takes great pride in his operation and cites Dykhuis as an outstanding company with distinguished core values.
“We are doing all we can to make this a good situation,” Lee says of his operation, which has provided five full-time jobs and up to four or five part-time positions. Most of the employees are family members, including Lee’s niece, Cindy Murphy, who is the business manager.
“We spent an extra $40,000 just in stone trying to be a good neighbor,” Lee said in explaining that when he built his barns at the two sites, he placed them more than 1/2 mile off the road and far beyond the required state limits. And on each site, the barns are more than 200 feet apart.
“Before we ever started, we hired people to find us the best neighbor-friendly location possible,” Lee said.
And while the smell of a hog farm does not provide a “perfect environment” for the neighbors, Lee takes an extra step in disposing of liquid manure once a year from each barn’s excrement pit.
“All of our manure is injected into the ground. When we inject it, it goes any where from 4 to 12 inches in the ground,” he said.
“The smell is in the pits, not in the manure,” he noted.
“This is as high-tech as most any industry,” Lee said, and we take a lot of pride in doing things right here.
“We have to be certified and take lots of training to do the things we do. We document everything we do here and we try to be as humane as possible,” Lee said.
Like all the other CAFOs in the county, the Lee hog farm is subject to inspection from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) on a regular basis and has continually measured up to state standards.
Referring to what he calls the “perfect environment” Lee points to the steps taken by his staff to see that the hogs are raised properly.
The Lee barns are temperature controlled, as well as the feeding and watering systems, which are all computerized.
Everyone who enters one of the barns, whether an employee or a visitor, must sign in and sign out, and also go through what is called the “red zone” for decontamination before entering the barns.
A 160-kilowatt generator is on the site and would respond in less than three seconds to any power outages that could occur.
“We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got,” Lee said as he pointed to the farm’s contribution to the community.
Lee is proud to cite that his operation has one of the lowest death rates in the nation. “We are in the top six percent in the nation,” he said of his operation.
“We walk the barns at least twice a day, every day. We keep a close eye on our animals,” he said.
“Down here, the only way to create a tax base is through agriculture. This is one way to keep the schools solvent by keeping a solid tax base,” Lee said of his operation.
Lee owns over 850 acres of land and plants over 2,000 acres.
His operation has brought a huge increase of traffic on County Road 100S as anywhere from 16 to 20 semis come in each week with feed, and there is even more traffic when the piglets are delivered and the hogs are taken to market.
Lee is hopeful county government will be able to come up with funds to meet an improvement in the road situation.
Piglets arrive at the Lee barns weighing about 10 pounds and being about two weeks old. When they are shipped out six months later, they will weigh up to 300 pounds apiece.
Lee’s hogs are taken to the Cargill packing plant in Beardstown, Ill., or to the Tyson plant at Logansport.
Lee contracted with Dykhuis Farms because of its commitment to caring for the environment while not exploiting its employees or the people they do business with as well..
Dykhuis contractors house market hogs in wean to finish or feeder to finish buildings in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.
joe@news-banner.com