Hi there, it's Matt,
My family and I recently went to a pig farm in Southern Illinois. In this part of Illinois all you can see from the road is corn and soybeans. But you can't eat the corn because the corn is grown for the farm animal feed and other things - it is not sweet corn. At the pig farm we saw 25,000 pigs and a few cattle! The farmer told us that the pig buildings would smell bad. I have smelled some pretty horrible things but nothing compared to this. Our clothes stunk of pigs for hours. All pigs do is eat, poop and pee! The floor had slats for the poop and pee. When the pigs walk on the slats their poop drops through. Some lucky person gets to clean up after the pigs - yuck!!! After that we walked to the feed processing room. That is were the feed is made for the pigs and the cattle . In the center of the room their was a huge generator. When we asked the farmer what it was used for, he told us that if the power goes off for 15 minutes all the pigs would be dead! They would die because of the ammonia and other vapors from their pee and poop. Then he took us to a shed with huge tractors in it. Many of the tractors and other farm equipment can hold up to 400 gallons of fuel. In the harvest season, which is about six week, the equipment uses several thousand gallons of fuel a day! The farm is 2,500 acres which is considered a mid-sized farm. We learned that farming can be a risky business. There are many natural factors that can create problems for farmers. These factors include locusts, sleet, a freeze, not enough rain or too much rain. The farmers do not water their crops, so they rely entirely on rainfall. Also, farmers work really hard, and start working at sunrise and quit at sunset....I really enjoyed seeing what life was like outside of California. I hope to go back and work on a farm one summer. Matt
My family and I recently went to a pig farm in Southern Illinois. In this part of Illinois all you can see from the road is corn and soybeans. But you can't eat the corn because the corn is grown for the farm animal feed and other things - it is not sweet corn. At the pig farm we saw 25,000 pigs and a few cattle! The farmer told us that the pig buildings would smell bad. I have smelled some pretty horrible things but nothing compared to this. Our clothes stunk of pigs for hours. All pigs do is eat, poop and pee! The floor had slats for the poop and pee. When the pigs walk on the slats their poop drops through. Some lucky person gets to clean up after the pigs - yuck!!! After that we walked to the feed processing room. That is were the feed is made for the pigs and the cattle . In the center of the room their was a huge generator. When we asked the farmer what it was used for, he told us that if the power goes off for 15 minutes all the pigs would be dead! They would die because of the ammonia and other vapors from their pee and poop. Then he took us to a shed with huge tractors in it. Many of the tractors and other farm equipment can hold up to 400 gallons of fuel. In the harvest season, which is about six week, the equipment uses several thousand gallons of fuel a day! The farm is 2,500 acres which is considered a mid-sized farm. We learned that farming can be a risky business. There are many natural factors that can create problems for farmers. These factors include locusts, sleet, a freeze, not enough rain or too much rain. The farmers do not water their crops, so they rely entirely on rainfall. Also, farmers work really hard, and start working at sunrise and quit at sunset....I really enjoyed seeing what life was like outside of California. I hope to go back and work on a farm one summer. Matt
Good job Matt! Glad you had a good time - well, except for the smell!! I read this post especially to Joshua (he's 13) When we moved back to NH, Josh had this out-of-the-blue interest in farming. He was homeschooled the last 3 years so every opportunity he had free of studies, he got online or read his books about farm animals - as a result of his interest, we now have chickens in our backyard!! He built the coop (with a little help from his dad) and collected their eggs everyday, including during the snowy winter months! We live in a newly developed neighborhood, so we can't have livestock, but our neighborhood sits in the "country" so there are farms all around us! I thought that maybe God was pulling him in that direction and perhaps he would raise animals for Heiffer International, but now Josh wants to be a Marine! He still loves farm animals though! Hopefully we'll get an opportunity to meet up with you all!
ReplyDeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteI am sure my neighbor would take you on as a hired hand! Swing back through Illinois in a week and they will be in the full swing of harvest...:)
Glad you had fun seeing his farm! It was great seeing all of you too!
Have fun on the rest of your trip.
Betsy