Chances are your barn will be filling up with showpig prospects. They may be trucked hundreds of miles by a hired hauler or be purchased from a breeder right down the road. Regardless, keeping prospects healthy after you purchase them is a key ingredient to showring success, and the stress of sales, travel, strange feed and a new environment makes this task challenging at times. The Showpig.com team caught up with Dr. Mike Tripp, swine veterinarian from Ringling, Oklahoma, to learn how to keep prospects healthy and productive.
The summer heat can be brutal to the sow herd – both the hot and humid climates and the dry heat cause concern for pig breeders. And their biggest concern is keeping their sows bred.
When the Oldenberg family arrives at a livestock show, the first thing their travel crew decides is where to set up the kitchen. This decision is as essential as the tack and stalling location for them.
WPX Keeps Growing
The World Pork Expo is the Super Bowl of the show pig season, bringing families and their show pig projects from all corners of the United States to Des Moines, Iowa, in early June. The WPX has seen major growth in numbers and foot traffic during the past five years, but last year its growth exploded. Brian Arnold, who oversees events for the National Swine Registry, says NSR anticipated growth, but never would have guessed how big it would be. In 2015 there were 4,000 junior hogs entered and 2,200 exhibited. In the open show, another 778 gilts were shown, making the event just shy of 5,000 hogs and the largest swine show of the year.
We think it is important for you to have the information and tools that will help make your online sale a success. To help ensure that you have a master list of everything you need to do for your online sale in one place, we have created this handy, printable online sale checklist.
The Wendt Group, Showpig.com and Rick Fogle Auctioneer are bringing you the largest and most unique collection of vintage livestock signs, advertising, supplies and memorabilia that has been offered in some time. Straight from the private collections of the late Ralph Doak, former NSR fieldman; the late Doug Parrish, long-time Duroc breeder; and Kevin Wendt, this offering features hundreds of items, selling both online and in-person.
