go in the ring with the best possible plan until you get punched in the mouth. You want to be on the leading edge, but not the bleeding edge. The work that's being done by farmers here in Indiana feeds the entire world. Yes, that's wild. Driving around central Indiana and not just think just another corn field, but enjoy it for what it is. I'd like to know what is the biggest misconception about pig farmers in the state of Indiana.
From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Hey Indiana, if you've been looking for a smart way to tap into the value of your home, let me put something on your radar. The home equity line of credit or HELOC from Elements Financial. A HELOC is basically your home working for you. It gives you flexible access to funds when you need them.
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org/getingeear. Elements Financial, like a bank, only better. Equal housing lender, subject to credit approval, federally insured by NCUA. Now, let's get into the episode. My guest today is David Harden and he is a sixth generation family hog farmer right here in Danville, Indiana. Your family has been farming the Marian County, Hendricks County line since 1827.
I'm really excited to dive in today about I mean the ins and outs of who's your hog farmers, learning, you know, the economics a little bit of the business, learning about the hard work that goes into this and everything when it comes to pigs in the state of Indiana. David, welcome to the show. Now, thank you, Nate. Glad to be here. I mean, anyone that's watching is going to see that we have a little bit different of a studio today. We are out in Danville on the farm.
And this is I mean, this is like an iconic farm shop that we're in. And I I'm just feeling right back at home. Nate, you may think iconic. I think, oh jeez, we could have had things a little bit cleaner today. But, uh, you've come out here right when we're in the middle of, uh, trying to get this year's crop planted. And we've also just finished some uh major renovations to our hog facilities.
So, uh there's a lot of stuff that's probably a little out of place today. Well, one I this is a super busy time. So, I appreciate you sitting down with us for a little bit here. U as you can see behind us, you'll see a gator. You're going to see, you know, different welding equipment, tools, literally something for any problem you could possibly have. And that's the one thing I think that people don't understand about farmers is it's not just like being an expert on crops and it's not just being an expert on hogs or being an expert on driving the tractor.
You have to know a little bit. You kind of said a jack of all trades. And one of the things that you've recently been learning more about is kind of like let's say innovating on your hog process for you guys. You just have I mean we just saw I don't know over a thousand little piglets that just are are pretty new to the farm here. take me through the process of what you guys are doing in the newly renovated hog barn over there. Sure, Nate.
Well, uh, those pigs came in at roughly 3 weeks of age, and we are, uh, acclimating them to, you know, life on their own without mom right now since they were weaned. They are at a time where they're pretty small still. They're in that 12 to 15 lb range. And so, they like things pretty warm. So, we've got that barn up over 80° in there to keep them comfortable, keep them moving. They've had uh their meals brought to them essentially with mom before whenever she'd lay down and they would be able to go nurse.
Well, we're working them uh up to eating more solid food. And so we've got to get that out in on mats that you saw there in the barn where they're going to be curious and they're going to go and they're going to nose around on that and start nibbling on it and say, "Oh, this tastes pretty good." And so they're understanding that now that they've been weaned, that's where they're going to get uh the bulk of their feed from. Uh the other thing that we're doing in there is you saw there were literally over a hundred of them per pen in there. You know, we've got to get them up. Stir them are up.
make sure we give every one of those a good look so that we know that any of them that may have gotten, you know, a hurt toe or something like that and they're that we can give them, you know, whatever proper care is. Well, I mean, you have me in this like full-on hazmat suit with boot covers to not because I was scared to get dirty, but because their immune system is just so young and and underformed. Uh, and that's what I I don't think a lot of people realize either is, you know, it's not just all dirt and grime and there's a lot of sanitation that goes into growing piglets. One of the many things people don't understand about raising pigs is they can catch a lot of the same bugs or diseases that that we as humans can. So, our goal is to try and keep them in as sanitary an environment as possible. uh that, you know, before those pigs came in, even though that barn was brand new, we disinfected everything in there because, you know, if an animal's not healthy, well, then it's it's not going to be it's not going to grow well.
It's not going to eat. It's not going to thrive. We want to make sure that we give those pigs the best possible chance they can to grow well and do well. Yeah. And I mean, this is not something that's new to you. Like, your dad was a farmer for generations.
you guys have been farming this west side uh of central Indiana. Talk to me about where in your journey did you know that you were going to be a hog farmer? I knew that I wanted to come back uh to the family farm, you know, when I was finishing up my senior year uh at Purdue University. I just didn't know when the timing was going to be right. Worked a few other jobs uh out in the industry before I came back to our family operation. And I I graduated from Purdue in '96.
And it wasn't until 2003 that I came back to farm full-time uh on the family operation. Like I said, I knew I wanted to come back my senior year, but I knew I didn't have all the skills I needed uh to be able to succeed yet. I mean, obviously Purdue does a a great job to prepare young people to to be out in in the world, but I, you know, I'd not worked with other people outside of, you know, the employees that we had at that point in time and family members. So, I I knew I needed to see what it was like to work in other organizations and and be able to pick up other information that that would help me, you know, become a better manager, a better marketer, things like that. But so when you say marketing, it's not like like the kind of marketing we're thinking about. Marketing for you and marketing for all farmers is the like the process of selling uh whatever your livestock is, whatever your crop is like out on the market, right?
That that's right. uh you know the one thing I keep saying that one thing that people there's many things that the average uh person out there that's you know maybe two or three generations removed from having you know any contact with somebody family that had been on a farm you know there's just a lot they don't know and we operate in from economics you would consider a perfectly competitive market I mean we're producing a commodity that the bushel of corn or the pig that I raise isn't that much different than the bushel of corn or pig that a farmer in say Nebraska raises or in France for that matter. When are the the right times for us to be able to market our agricultural products and that's going to return a margin to us? So, we're price takers. You know, we take what the market gives us. You know, I I can't go out.
I'm not like Walmart where I can be like, "Oh, I need to raise the price on this particular product that I'm selling today because my margin has has shrank." I don't have that that luxury. But I'm also a price taker when I buy my inputs, whether that be, you know, components for our feed or crop protection uh uh products that we put on our corn or our soybeans. Yeah. So, wait, I that terminology, you're a price taker. you take the price of the market like you know if uh you know if hogs are.
7 cents a pound or if they're a dollar a pound like that's a price that you take but if your supplier on the feed side on the you know whatever I mean medicine veterinarian like those kind of services like you have to be a price taker there as well that's wild exactly so it it it definitely puts a squeeze on on margins at at various times So, one of the things in agriculture that you have to do is when times are good, you've got to make sure you're putting putting things aside for when times are going to be lean because you know that's going to happen. I mean, the markets, they go through cycles. One of the things that I want to talk about is the levers that you can pull. So, let's say like a normal business, let's say you own a restaurant. Well, you could go out and hand out flyers in a church parking lot and try to get people to come in and buy your chicken or whatever the business might be.
There are levers that you can pull to increase revenue or decrease cost for you as a farmer being a price taker. What are the levers that you can pull to increase, you know, improve the business that you have here? I think a lot of people probably try and go to one of of two models. They either say, I'm going to try and focus on being the least cost producer. So that means you're you're focusing on on your inputs and really trying to get them purchased at the lowest price or you're trying to make sure you're you're very efficient with, you know, the pigs where we were talking about trying to keep them healthy. Well, if we keep them healthy, then we don't have to give them any kind of medication and they're going to grow faster.
So, they're going to be get uh get to market quicker. So, fewer days to market means more money uh back in our pocket. The other thing that some producers do is they try and and, you know, differentiate what they're selling. Uh, you know, you'll see some smaller producers do that with, you know, trying to market their either their their produce or their meat, you know, more direct to consumers. Put a tagline, put a name on there and say, "Ah, this is better because it's either, you know, free." Yeah.
The whole nine yards. Whatever label you want to put on that. So it becomes more like boutique, you know, like boutique, whether it be a crop, whether it be a vegetable or whether it be like a an animal, you know, produce. Exactly. Uh, you know, for us personally, I I kind of try and do a little bit of a hybrid hybridization of those while we don't do any direct to consumer marketing. uh the people that we work with uh on uh selling the pigs that come off of our farm.
You know, we try and highlight some of the things that we do uh that maybe, you know, make us more sustainable, lower our carbon footprint. Uh you know, you may have outside noticed that there are solar panels by all the barns on a nice sunny day like today. that's taking care of all of the electricity generation for for those barns. So, we we try and do that, but at the same point in time, you know, we're looking on trying to keep our our costs low. Yeah. Well, take us through that.
What is the life cycle of a hog? Like when they come through, you know, the front gates or they come through down the driveway and by time they end up on my my breakfast sandwich. Sure. We'll call a spade a spade here. Like, what is the what does that life cycle look like? And what does the like your guys's like your farm specifically where do you take it from and get it to?
Most of the uh females or sves are artificially inciminated. Uh today just what a wild job like you're say because I mean you guys just recently got out of the SA game but like someone's job on a Tuesday was to wake up and artificially inseminate SAS on the Harden Farms here in Danville. Like that's what that's like how many times a year would you have a an artificial insemination day? We were breeding s literally 365 days a year. No way. Yeah.
Now now some days were busier, some days were busier than others. Um that is like I mean someone's got to do it though. AB absolutely. Wow. You know uh Christmas, New Year's, your birthday, you had to be here on your It's like All right. But like Okay.
So like is that like a 20 minute process or an hourlong process or uh for each s it's going to take about 10 minutes? Uh and one of the reasons the industry or or farmers move to doing it that way is if if you let it happen the good oldfashioned way uh of making bacon then you know one bore could probably do one s uh in half an hour versus now we can do you know three three or more. Uh and so again it's it's moving a little bit quicker and and if you know the human is doing it then they know that it it it happened for Yeah. And then you said it's a 3 month 3 week and 3-day just g justation period. That's correct. So versus like in a human you think 9 months you're 3 months.
So, okay. So, then artificial insemination happens. You're waiting, keeping the the mom happy, happy, keeping her fed. Usually about uh about 28 days after that service, we're going to come in with an ultrasound and we're going to confirm uh that she is pregnant. How many piglets does each like what's like the relative litter? Sure.
Sure. Uh that number has come up a bunch over the the past say three to four decades. uh you know, you you used to be really happy if uh you know, she'd have 10 and you could wean eight of those. Uh now, uh it's more likely that they're going to have, you know, 14 or 15 piglets per litter and you're hoping that you're going to be able to save and wean, you know, 12 12 of those every time. So, you know, people don't like talking about improving efficiencies and things like that, but in when it comes to livestock production, but that's, you know, part and parcel to what we what we're trying to do. Well, it's like uh, you know, the mortality rate like, you know, as more science and innovation comes along, you would hope that less people, you know, whether it be human or otherwise, like are losing less babies as like life goes on and there's new uh, innovations in that space.
Okay. So, you're three 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days relatively along that. You have an ultrasound. You're getting, you know, 14 being able to wean 12, let's say. So, you're getting a dozen new piglets. How long will they stay with mom before they have to get weaned?
They're going to stay with mom between three and four weeks. Okay. What's the telling sign? How do you know that? Like 3 and 4 weeks. How do you know that they're ready to rock?
When they get to roughly 12 pounds physiologically at a stage when they're they're ready to, you know, make it on their own and go uh be weaned, we're going to be then taking the SA and getting her ready to to be in shape to breed again after that. But that the stage where then those pigs are going to leave the farm where they're at and then they're going to come to us at that point in time. So you're getting about like a month old piglet. Yes. So four weeks old, they come and end up on the farm here. They're about 20 or you said 15 20 pounds.
Yeah. Usually about 15 pounds. Okay. So 15lb piglet shows up here. How long does it take them to get ready to, you know, go go live out their duty? Yeah.
They'll they'll spend about the next 5 months of their life here. And, you know, we're going to be checking in on them. You know, in the beginning, we're going to be in there a lot. You know, we're going to be, like I said, stirring those pigs up, checking, giving it, making sure every one of them gets a good look over, making sure they're all eating. What are you looking for when you're like, you know, you stir them up, you get them moving around, and and what are you watching for? Uh, we're going to look for any of them that are slow to get up.
You know, you were in the barn, you saw how active those little ones are, and they're scampering around. You're looking for ones that are slow, kind of lethargic. If you've done this long enough, you just you know the tells their their their ears will be a little droopy. And so we're going to look at them and be like, "Oh, were they just were they just asleep, you know, and they're a little slow slow on the go there or they got a fever? They're not feeling well. And if if they're not feeling well, we're going to treat them treat them appropriately."
Yeah. You know, either either give them something to take care of the fever or if if we think they're getting we know they're sick, we're going to give them antibiotic. Uh, and that's something that, you know, we try and be very, very judicious about. We're not just giving antibiotics to everything to try and keep them healthy and push them through. They're only going to get antibiotics if they're sick. There are a lot of people that are trying to, you know, put a lot of uh a lot on agriculture that, you know, there's now these super bugs or antibiotic resistant bugs that are out there.
You know, MREs is one of the big ones. Uh, you know, believe me, I need antibiotics not just to work for my family, but also I need them to work to keep the animals that are here healthy. So, uh, you know, myself and other people in the industry, we're we're not going to abuse abuse those cuz they're not they're not cheap either. So, I'm not going to go out and spend a lot of money uh just kind of using a shotgun approach uh on something like that to the animals unless it's absolutely 100% necessary. And this is the interesting piece too. So, I feel like a lot of people think that all the pork that ends up in the grocery store are made on these super farms, you know, like big uh massive operations that are run by private equity corporations and the whole nine yards when in I mean reality I think that that we talked before this there's 2800 hog farm hog farmers in the state of Indiana from you know sizes of your guys' scope down to smaller operations to bigger operations.
But they're all owned by 2,800 families in that in that sense. Like are there are I'm assuming there's big operations that are those, but like I mean it seems like there's a decent chunk in the state of Indiana that is family-owned farms. Vast majority of them are. And they might they might be a corporate farm just because the family decided that was the best legal structure to set up for them, you know, to be able to pass it down between generations. Yeah. But it's not uh not the private equity owned uh operation like where you're just like, you know, churning and burning like get as many pigs through the door regardless of the cost.
Give them a shot, do whatever, get them out the door. Like I mean, you talked about we just walked through there. It's like you're walking through there as like, you know, the the head honcho of the operation and you're getting eyes on these piglets and you're like, "Oh, I know the tails." Like, I don't know. That doesn't seem very, you know, big war machiny. No, it definitely isn't.
I mean, it's it's it's a labor of love. Yeah. Uh to to be sure. You know, there were a lot of other things I could have could have done. Uh and you know, we could have decided that, you know, the animal agriculture wasn't something that that fit well. Um but I I think it still got a place in in this uh in our family's operation.
And you know, I one of the things I really enjoy about farming is the idea that, you know, we're we're doing something for the greater good here. Not just the environment, but you know, all the people that out there in the world, not just here in Indiana, but literally around the world that that we're feeding uh off of this farm. Do you feel a little bit of responsibility as a sixth generation family farmer to keep going? You know, it'd be real easy to say uh say no. There's a lot of lot of, you know, sixth generation or and even more farmers that are look at things and be like, "Oh, well, I' I'd sure like to go to the lake this weekend instead of uh, you know, going out and working in the field or being in the barn caring for the animals or I want to go to a Colts game this weekend or Purdue basketball game or what, you know, there there's a lot of other things that might sound like fun, but you can't file PTO with the Piglets, you know, like you can't put in a little request has to take some time and go down on vacation.
No, no, but but again, you got to have everybody's got to have a work life balance still. And and that might be some of uh what went into the decision to to not have the SLS on the farm here anymore. You know, we can still participate, still have animals on the farm, but maybe not have quite the, you know, the level of of management that we had before. Yeah. About five months goes, so they go from 15 pounds. Over that five months, how much weight will a piglet gain?
Uh, they're going to be roughly 300 pounds when they when they leave here. So, they are packing on weight quickly. What's the food of choice? Like, what does a piglet eat to gain 200 and something pounds in 5 months? Well, Nate, there in the bucket right behind you there, there is a sample of what what we've got that the the pigs are going to be uh be eating. The vast majority of that is going to be corn and soybeans grown right here in Indiana.
You know, the corn is going to be the the main starch and energy that they get. Uh the soybeans, that's going to be the chief protein uh source. You're going to get two major components out of soybeans. You're going to get the oil and you're going to get the uh that you know is used for things like you know cooking oil and and things like that. protein goes into a lot of animal feed, not just pigs, but things like uh poultry, you know, ducks, chickens, things like that, cattle. Uh but then we also have got uh you know, vitamins, minerals in there, maybe some maybe a little bit of additional fat or some different fiber uh fiber sources.
Uh you know, th those young pigs in there. One of the things that's going to be in there is uh oats because that's easily digestible for the that young pig's uh gut. So we'll have about a dozen different feed changes during that that 5 months are here. Yes. So like you have it's almost like a baby formula that then turns into like uh pureed fruits and vegetables and whatnot to then get them on to uh Wow. Exactly.
Exactly. And and and generally as they age the protein level is going to drop a little bit because they're going to be eating more. Uh but all in all, Nate, we try and focus on uh one of the things we try and focus on is feed efficiency, which is basic. It's just the ratio between how many pounds of feed did they consume versus how many pounds of meat did they put on and you want to have that somewhere under three. Now chickens, it's almost a one for one. Uh but so basically for that, you know, almost 300 lb that they put on, you know, you want to uh have only had somewhere under 900 lb of feed go through each pig while they were here.
Okay, that makes So if you're Yeah. trying to get to a 300lb pig, they got to gain 285. So then you multiply that by three, that math math. So under 900 lb to get to a 300 lb pig. Yes. Wow.
So out there, if you have a child that might be a little bit undersized, you got to get them on a little bit of this. There you go. Look at them rocking and 5 months from now, you could have a heavyweight wrestler. Wow. Okay. So then once they hit that 300 lb mark, is that where is there another part of the journey or is that where they start to go to, you know, finish out their duty?
That that that's when uh they're going to be uh finishing out and we'll we'll load them on the trucks and they'll go to the processor uh from there. Like what's like a big if I was to buy like sliced ham at the store, what's like the biggest brand? Well, obviously there's store brands like Petbridge Farms. Well, is that what it's called? They do some uh Ty Tyson. Okay.
Tyson. Uh in here in Indiana, you got the Indiana Kitchen. In Indiana, we've got two bigger processors. There's both Tyson and in Loganport and Indiana Packers in in Deli. And then just over the river in Louisville, we've got uh uh JBS Swift that's got got a processor down there. And that's where I would say a majority of the pigs that are produced in Indiana go to.
Okay. So those one of those three. One of those three. Yes. Okay. So one of those three hogs load up on a truck go there.
And then do they have deals with like the retail brands that you're going to see like whether I know Tyson, you know, largely goes in their under their name. It's like Tyson ham or Tyson whatever it might be. But Indiana Packers like I would I go to the store and find like an Indiana Packers like sliced ham. Are you negotiating or are you contracting with the retail brands or is that done through a processor that the the processors are are doing that? They'll focus on trying to get stuff into the retail locations whether that's the Kroger's, the Walmarts, the Meyers of of the world. Uh but then they'll also sell raw unfinished products.
So just bone in hams or bone bone uh bone in loins to other other companies that'll do further further processing and make other specialty products, you know, that go on to you know like your local butcher shop or whatever that might be. Exactly. or or other, you know, other brands that you you would see some of the, you know, like barbecue products and things like that. Oh, yeah. Like if someone's doing like a pulled pork. That's interesting.
Pork from Indiana that moves into the export channels. Uh Indiana packers and deli, they send a lot of product to Japan. Wow. Products from Swift, I know, go down to Mexico for f further processing into different products down there. So, the work that's happening on Indiana pig farms is feeding not just the state of Indiana, not just the United States of America, but also Japan, Mexico, and the like the world. Yes.
That's wild. I had no idea. So, okay, here's a question. If I was at my local grocery store and I wanted to I'm getting some sort of pork product, what brand should I be looking for to support Indiana pork farmers? Tyson Swift and Indiana Kitchen. Would I be looking or would it say Indiana Kitchen on it?
Yes. Oh, so if I'm just like in the bacon section, I could see Indiana Kitchen bacon. Yes. Let's say like quality, right? If I'm in the bacon section, is there like a and this might be a silly question, but okay, let's put it into horse terms. You have like the normal like draft horse and then you have like a thoroughbred that's going to go win the Kentucky Derby.
Is there a difference in pork? Like are there tears to hogs? It's all about how the animal is fed. If if you feed them the right way, you're going to end up with a better quality. Yeah. But but is there like a like a wagoo of pork, you know, like oh, when you're out there, you got to order the like filt pork chop or something?
uh people that raise uh and this is a breed of pig, birkshire hogs, that they would be the ones that would say, "Yeah, we're we're raising that wig goo equivalent." Uh it's it's a it's a darker a little bit darker meat. You're going to have a little more marbling in in uh the meat. So that if if you're somewhere that you see that uh you know label on there, you're going to say, "Okay, this it's it's worth worth experimenting and try trying it just to see if if you like the difference." You kind of mentioned a few of them, but I'd like to know what is the biggest misconception about pig farmers in the state of Indiana. We're, you know, mostly family farmers that are out here, you know, trying to, you know, trying to make a living and doing the best we can for our families, for our neighbors, for the for the environment, for the state.
You know, we we take a lot of pride in knowing that we're producing food uh that's again feeding not just our families, but also the state and and the rest of the world. Like I want to go through your day cuz the one thing I think is another misconception is that farming is simple. When you think about it like broadly from like 10,000 feet you're like, "Oh yeah, you raise pigs, send them to the processor." Like when you say it like that, it's simple. But if we went through your day, well, one, today it started with taking your daughter to swim practice at 5:30 in the morning. But what does a day on the farm look like?
Take me through like the itinerary. When I get here, uh, usually the first thing that I'm going to be doing is, uh, checking what the overnight commodity markets, uh, traded. You know, where was we up? Were we down? Is there news of a new war somewhere that's going to impact? So, the first thing is actually like you're checking the market to see like what's the value of what we're doing here.
Yeah. And seeing what what what the trends are uh, for the day. we have ideas where we want to try and sell products at and where we want to try and, you know, buy inputs at. And so we're we're looking at at that. Uh then during the time of the year that it's important that we're out crop farming. It's I'm going to be checking the weather, not just what's going to do today or but over, you know, the next 10 days.
I thought as a farmer you could just feel it in your knee. Isn't that is that a misconception, too? Well, I think I am not quite to the average age of farmers yet. I think once you get above the average age, then yes, that that that that becomes uh part of of what you what you have to deal with. But, you know, Nate, it was funny. My I married a city girl.
She she grew up in Chicago and she admitted to me after we'd been married for a couple of years, she's like, "You know, when I first started coming around you and your family, I used to think you were all incredibly you must be the most boring people in the world because all you talk about is the weather." And then she said, "It finally dawned on me. Everything you do revolves around the weather." And so you weren't talking about the weather because you had nothing better to talk about. It was it was okay. This is going to set our agenda for the next couple weeks.
It is wild to have to be so reactive, you know, like you you might have the plan to I mean early on, let's say it's it's, you know, in April, all right, we're going to get out there and we're going to get planting done. And then if you have off and on showers for 2 weeks, all of a sudden it's the middle or the beginning of May and you're like, "Well, there goes our plan." I think Mike Tyson said it best. You know, you can go in the ring with the best possible plan until you get punched in the mouth. Uh we try and start every year with the best or even whether it be the year or the day with the best possible plan and then you might end up not on plan even B. might be G or H by the time uh you get get to the end of it, but you just kind of keep rolling with it and adapt, you know, as best you can.
Uh so you come in, you're checking the market, you're checking the weather, just making sure there what what are we on to? And after that, we're we're moving on to checking on the animals, making sure that uh you know, infrared feed controllers are all working okay that you and I talked about in the barn. We're checking the temperature. We're making sure there's enough water flow to those pigs. We're walking through and stirring them up, looking for any of those that are kind of lethargic and sluggish or maybe have a limp. Looking at those kinds of things.
Then we're going to take stock and inventory of how much feed they have to see whether we need to order any more feed. Uh and then after we've made sure gone through and cared for all the animals, then it's like move on to okay, are there any repairs that we need to do? Uh any immediate repairs that we need to do that day? If it's the time of year that we're in the fields, well, then it's all right. Now that the the animals have been cared for, now we can hop in the tractor and head out to the field and do what's do what's next. Oh, and then ripping that until 5 like is it like a 9 to like you get there at 9:00, you're done at 5.
Last Friday, I think I I climbed out of the tractor around quarter after 10 night. So, ran out of daylight. Well, ran out of field. So we knew uh rain was coming in Saturday morning. So it was like you had to get it had to get it done. That is a lot of it.
I feel like it is just you're not done at a specific time. You're not done at You can't take days off. You're done when the work's done when the job's done. You know, there's a lot of other demands on family life. It's it's not it's not easy. Uh but you try and strike a balance as as best you can.
Uh, you know, I I got a feeling uh we're going to be able to go to the field later this afternoon, Nate. But, uh, my daughter's got a track meet, so I'll probably jump off the tractor for a couple hours to go watch her run, and then I'll come back and jump back on and turn on the headlights. So, it it's just uh you you got to be flexible and uh be willing to adapt. I know other farmers at that time of year it's like you know you don't schedule weddings that you know in April and May or even the first part of June because there's there's things there's work to do. So you don't those things that are discretionary you you push them off to the other times of the year. But you know with with livestock you know it's we've talked about it's you know it's a 365 uh day a year job.
You know, there's a lot of my, you know, you talk about what are the misconceptions out there. There's a lot of people think, oh, farmers, well, they're they're busy in the spring and they're busy in the fall, but they don't do anything else the rest of the year. Well, for those of us that have livestock, there's something to do every day. Yeah. Well, another thing is everyone thinks the farmers are rich. Like every farmer, oh, they have to be like look at their nice million-dollar combine or whatever it is, right?
Everyone thinks that farmers are rich. A piece of that is like, you know, you might own slashfarmm a bunch of land. You might have a bunch of but it's like you can't go pay for your daughter's tuition on an acre of ground, right? It's like you have to keep that to continue to generate revenue and it it is like a on paper maybe, but I don't know what what would you say to that? That was probably the one part of my day that I didn't I didn't talk about. You know, it's the the bookkeeping and the accounting.
And uh for me, that's something that happens basically late at night after everybody's gone to bed is when I have time to finally get in the office and and focus on those kinds of things. Uh Nate, but you know, you've got to make sure that you're, you know, you're budgeting appropriately. And again, you you you weren't too far off when you said how how much some of those uh uh big things with green paint or red paint cost. It's a nice shiny fancy thing, but is that a investment that's going to give you an ROI? That makes sense. Or is it just a something that you're buying for prestige, which uh that you can't have you can't have that if you're going to stay in business very long?
That that's an interesting piece, too. Like you talk about staying in business. Like I don't know a lot of people that are starting new farms that like like that have the means or like the business model to make it work to start a farm. Like if I went out and said, "All right, today I'm going to be a hog farmer." Like how would you even start? And and that also leads into the fact that generational like legacy family farms are so important.
So I'd love to talk a little bit about that as we get towards the end of the show. farm ground today in Indiana might be going for somewhere, you know, depending upon where you're at, you know, 12 to even $15,000 an acre rent. You know, even if you were just going to rent it, you you might be looking at, you know, $250 to $300 an acre depending upon where you're at in the state. And that's the piece, too. Even if you figured out how to like finance and get all the equipment, it's not like you can just like look online and say like rent farmground. com because for you to get the kind of like the rights to rent some farm ground, somebody else has to probably lose their rights to farm that ground and and relationships run so deep.
I mean, you're selling yourself to these potential potential landlords and trying to say, "Hey, here is what I what I do and how I can do it better. I'm I'm going to steward your land, look after your land as if it were my own." Uh because when some of these rents got really high, there were farmers that, okay, I'll I'll pay you the astronomical rent, but I'm not going to put any nutrients back in into your ground. And so they basically strip mine all the nutrients out of that soil and it it's left depleted. So I I try and look at it as look, I I may not pay you the absolute highest dollar. Uh but I'm going to make sure that the fertility of your grounds looked after.
Make sure that we manage it to where you don't have soil erosion. Um and some people that resonates with, some people it doesn't. And maybe they're not if it doesn't then maybe they weren't the ones that I would have wanted to. A lot of times too where these transitions in in farm ground comes from is after an old farmer passes away and his kids don't want to do it anymore or or you know maybe there's like a transition there and you can hey you know I'm trying to grow my family farm. I've been doing this for a couple decades or we've been doing this for a few generations. is like this is our sales pitch and they almost be like you know vet it's like a it is a legitimate like pitch process.
It's crazy. Yeah. And and it's ongoing cuz even once you establish that relationship you have to keep it you have to keep it going. Uh and you know everyone's an individual. Some people want different levels of of information about how's the farm doing? You know what's the crop look like?
Other people are like no you're doing a great job. Just some mailbox money. Yeah. If I wanted to go out and start a hog farm in the state of Indiana, just me setting out day one, how would I like where would I start? And how could you is it possible to grow to thousands of pigs from just like a guy and and a passion for pigs. If you wanted to start out small with a a small birkshire herd and start working with direct to consumer, a person could do that.
if you found found a few acres. Uh you know, you talk about how there's generational transitions. I mean, there are hog farmers that are, you know, reaching retirement age and maybe don't have that next generation coming back. So, that would be more of if you wanted to try and get into it at scale. Uh but you don't get to pick and choose necessarily where you might, you know, you got to take that where that opportunity is at. There are there hot beds in the state of Indiana where lots of pigs are produced?
North central Indiana, you know, around uh del deli uh Carol County that that for years has been like the number one pig producing county in the state. They call that hog heaven. Yeah. The north central region of the state, a lot of lot of uh lot of pigs. And then in the southeast over around uh Greensburg, Haggartown, there's there's a fair number of pigs over there as well. Well, you said the big facilities cuz it would make sense as if there was like a local, you know, facility that was processing hogs that, you know, those would pop up around it because again toh to truck pigs from Danville to Deli or Louisville is a lot more expensive than from southeastern Indiana to Louisville or from Carol County to Deli, right?
Like that all those factors start to come into play which is super super interesting. Is there a part of the journey or a part of the the farming process that I missed? Like something that I skipped over and didn't think about? For being a layman, you've done a great job of of like kind of hitting some of the uh you know, the points that are important in in my day and also ones that, you know, my non-farming friends, you know, don't really think about. So, well, hey, there we go. I'll take that.
One question. I've heard this trend of regenerative farming. What is that like? Is there innovation that's coming to farmers like like how are you all thinking about ushering through the next couple decades and how to be the whether it be most efficient or the highest quality or what are the kind of like innovations happening? Regenerative a is a great uh buzzword and I think everyone you talk to has probably got a slightly different definition of what does that mean in agriculture it's kind of like AI like it's like the equivalent right like a like everyone around the world is talking about how they're using AI or chat GPT or whatever but like in farming it's like this this buzzword of regenerative a I talked about some of those farmers that have kind of strip mind and and almost abused the soil well the soil is your that's your factory that's your production where what you're going to be able to sell comes from.
People have have taken to viewing it more as the soil as an ent entity that has its own microbiome of, you know, fungi and bacteria that probably very beneficial. And so you don't want to strip that down to where there's nothing uh there. And if you've got a good active microbiome, then that's going to be beneficial for your whatever your cash crop that you're trying to sell, whether that's corn, wheat, soy, so soybeans. And that's probably something that wasn't totally recognized uh until you go through a few generations or a few decades at least, right? where it's like, oh, the PR and I mean that's the same thing with a lot of things, whether it be industrialization or like building cities and then you realize that your infrastructure was wrong, you know, like I feel like you realize that over over decades where oh, you know, 25 55 years ago we were not being as careful about cuz I mean even now like like I've what I've heard is you rotate what crops because depending on what crop you put in there, it pulls different nutrients and things like that.
for us, you know, we we do much less tillillage or or turning of the soil uh than we would have even a generation ago. Uh we do have an old mleboard plow out here, but I can't It's been over 30 years since it's been uh pulled out and used, you know. So, we're doing much less deep tillillage. We're trying not to disturb the soil that that way when we get these monsoon rains this time of year, you end up with a lot of erosion that takes that that top soil that took decades and decades to make even an inch of top soil. And you can see that washed down the stream, you know, overnight with some of these big rains that uh we'll have in the time of year when you don't have a growing crop out there. So, one of the other things that we've started to do more is is grow cover crops is something that people have talked about that's very integral in in this regenerative egg space.
And that's like off like that would be something you plant in the fall after you like so let's say you run a harvest of corn and then after you pull up maybe even while like right after you're harvesting corn you're planting a cover crop to keep the top soil intact during the winter and then coming back in and planting in the spring. Yes. You're you're keeping the top soil there. you're keeping the nutrients there and you're keeping a living root there for that that that microbiome that I'm talking about to feed on and and to help stay established. How important is knowing about crops to your life as a hog farmer? Like how much I feel like it's is it really one or the other or do you have to know a little bit about everything?
I I think people get by not knowing about both of them. But if you're going to be successful, you've got to know how you can integrate the two of them together. Uh you know, how I feed the nutrients, how we feed the pigs will affect the composition and and the nutrient load in the manure that comes from the pigs. Well, then that will impact what prot, you know, if we take that manure and we use it as an organic fertilizer to put back on our fields. Well, then that'll change, you know, that'll impact what crop I can grow there now that I know what nutrients are there in the field. And so, it just it's it is definitely an a cycle.
I mean, we uh a lot of times say, you know, farmers were the first recyclers. How are you learning? You know, like for me, if I want to learn more about videos or I want to learn more about uh marketing or whatever it might be, I go to YouTube, I'm reading blog posts. How does a farmer hone their craft? How do you get better at farming? You know, you got to be a lifelong learner.
Uh you know, if if you stop and say, "Nope, we've reached the pinnacle of how this should be done. I don't need to evolve or learn anything else." Well, then you're you're going to go extinct. Uh but for me, it's it's a lot of different media. uh you know whether they be farm trade magazines, whether they're you know actual paper or the digital format. Do listen to uh some some podcasts.
Who's like the foremost expert of like like online who's like then an expert in farming? It depends upon whether you're looking at the aronomy part of things or the economic parts of of things. uh um you know there's like the millennial farmer uh is one uh better way to farm uh on on the aronomy kinds of things. There's a there's a outfit that called uh AEI on the uh economic side of things or Purdue University their center for commercial agriculture and their uh aronomy departments have very good uh whether they be uh you know podcasts or uh just reports that they they've put out. our cooperative that we work with, they're always trying to find new information and they're great about I mean they want us to succeed because they're farmer owned. So if we succeed, they succeed.
So they're they're bringing us new new information. It's important to try and stay current and and you want to be on the leading edge, but not the bleeding edge. There we go. All right. Well, we've come to the end of the show. We have a few fun rapid fire questions for you.
Uh, a lot tying to the state of Indiana. So, first I got to know, what's the most fun job on the farm? Taking the text to the bank, cashing them. Uh, no, I I one of my favorite things is uh every year I'll put out a uh small sweet corn plot for my kids to then sell uh sweet corn. And so going out there with them to uh harvest that and then you know allow them to kind of see what the benefits can be coming from uh yeah from that their hard work. What is the worst job?
What's the toughest job on the farm? A lot of the people don't like, you know, when we've talked about, you know, the cleanup and the sanitation that goes around here is washing the barns after the after the pigs have left. And that's the job everybody else around here will gripe and complain about, but I I kind of like the solitude of it. It gives me some time with just my thoughts and I can I can think and and strategize about what the next thing is going to be. That sounds like a shitty job. Yeah.
But, uh, usually it's when, uh, you know, ones that aren't fun is like, uh, during the winter if you have something freeze up and you're having to, you know, you know, you've got to get it fixed, uh, and get it thawed out, but your hands are freezing and they're numb. Pigs have got to drink, so you got to get it fixed. Yeah. If you look back, what's been the hardest day of being a hog farmer? The day that I had to make the decision whether we were going to sell the SS or not. Uh, and I knew um, you know, it was going to be a new a new day and there were going to be changes, but I had to accept the fact that, you know, if you got to got to evolve and got to be willing to try new things.
I feel like that's a really, you mean, you kind of said it earlier, if you're not a lifelong learner and you're not, you know, innovating, I feel like that's a a kind of a thing with maybe generational farmers. Like, we've done this for decades. Like, why would we do anything different? And it's like thinking on like the rest of the world is changing like by the month it seems, you know, like technology, innovations will be coming out, but I know they they're going to be awesome. Oh, it's uh you know, you talk about how do I learn about stuff there? There's a online webinar uh this Thursday uh talking about you know, how farmers can use AI and where it will fit into their you know into their business model that I'm I'm very much looking forward to.
I'm curious to see how that'll work. Okay, we have the same three questions that we ask every guest who comes on the show. Okay. First, uh, you know, obviously Indiana pork goes to Japan, goes to Mexico, goes to other states across the United States. If you could shout it from the rooftops, what's one thing the world needs to know about Indiana? Indiana breaded pork tenderloin is the best sandwich.
Yes, sir. In the world, bar none. Is there a spot that you go to get a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich? Can you just make them? Can we just go slice off? I'm just kidding.
Big fan of uh the one at the Oasis Diner in Planefield. Don't they serve that on Texas Toach? It's like a solid It's a big sandwich for sure. That is a good one. There are so many good ones all across the state. Uh okay, question number two.
This is again Oasis is a good one. Uh this is your opportunity to shed some light on part of the state that more people need to be talking about. Could be a park, could be a restaurant, could be anything, a place in Indiana. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? driving around central Indiana and not just saying, "Oh, look, just another corn field." But enjoy it for what it is.
Uh because there's a lot of places in the world that are not as verdant and lush as as central Indiana is. So whether that's our state parks or just driving, you know, through central Indiana and looking at the different fields, that's what I would encourage people, especially in the fall when, you know, corn is, you know, pretty far up there and there's just green everywhere. It just puts me in a good mood. I have to ask, myth or real knee high by the 4th of July. I think it's way over the knees these days. It is way over the knees.
I think uh in the days when farmers wouldn't plant until close to Memorial Day and also back then you didn't have the hybrids that were as quick to grow. Probably made sense back then. Uh you know there there's a lot of years that it's up to my shoulder by the 4th of July. That's what I'm saying. It's it's like up there. Okay, final question.
This is your chance to share the love and where we get new guest recommendations and learn about other people in the state of Indiana that are doing really cool things. So, who's a hooer we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. Mr. Basketball, Mr. Luke Erle, uh, as he, uh, moves uh, to Purdue University in this coming fall.
He is a shooter. Holy smokes. Hopefully, uh, we're going to get, you know, four amazing years out of Mr. Erle. And, uh, Purdue's, I mean, I feel like for the last however long, they've been so good. like they're always in the mix and it's like we just need to get up over the hump and uh get the job done at the national championship.
Absolutely. This has been so awesome. We're getting ready to go on our tour. So, you're definitely going to have to check out We're going to go learn all about, you know, your guys' operation out here, what you're doing. There's going to be about a thousand little piglets on camera. So, if you uh if you love piglets, you're going to love the videos that we're going to put out here.
Thank you so much for your time. Uh, I think that there are a lot of misconceptions around what it takes and what really goes into being a farmer. From the economics behind it, from the business, the spreadsheets, the decision-m you have to be a a welder, a carpenter, an electrician, you got to be and also a a part-time veterinarian as well as just a caretaker of all the livestock and and the animals. And I just think it's incredible the work that you're doing. I mean, we definitely um respect and and have, you know, yeah, the utmost praise for you and the work that you're doing feeding not just Indiana, not just United States, the world. Like that has probably been my biggest eye opening moment that the work that's being done by farmers here in Indiana feeds the entire world.
Yes. We have a surprise for you. Our friends at Burn wanted to hook up one of our our farmer friends. So, they I don't know if you're familiar with Burn. They're a 100-year-old workware brand here in the state of Indiana. And so they wanted to get you hooked up cuz they support Indiana.
They support us. So uh they sent us a little gift for you here. U cuz you are a sixth generation farmer here in the state of Indiana and they got a whole setup for you. Uh some gear, a gift card, uh some stickers. I think there's a nice sweatshirt in there. But shout out to our friends at Burn.
They're awesome supporting, you know, anyone in the trades, anyone in, you know, the farming community, agriculture community, and it's a local brand. That's what I love. I think they were started in the early 1900s here in the state of Indiana in actually burn, Indiana. That's where it came from. So, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
And let's go for for a tour. All right. We appreciate this. This will get put to good use around here. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater.
If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
