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John Oncken: Book is just hog wild about raising pigs
Who'd buy a book about raising pigs?
The recently published "How To Raise Pigs" covers almost everything you need to know about pigs, from raising, to buying to selling and everything in between.
Raising pigs in Wisconsin has been on a downhill slide for many years. From the 1940s to the late 1970s most every state farmer raised dairy cows, chickens and pigs. It was called diversification. In 1979 there were just under 1.9 million pigs on Wisconsin farms.
Then farming specialization took over. The small hog houses disappeared and became storage sheds. New, high tech buildings were built by the faithful and enthusiastic hog raisers, many of whom specialized in large numbers of either farrowing or finishing hogs. Others began raising specialized breeding stock in large numbers.
Because of health issues, hog facilities are pretty much closed to visitors and the swine industry in Wisconsin continues to shrink. Today the latest inventory shows only 430,000 pigs on state farms.
At the same time commercial swine raising in our state was falling, more people began moving to the country. Houses sprouted on hills, in valleys and along country road across the Midwest. Many of the city folks who moved to the country bought farms, many of which had empty barns and hog houses.
And most of the new former urban residents had growing families -- young children who joined 4-H clubs and enrolled in vocational agriculture classes in high school.
A requirement to be a 4-Her or FFA member is to carry out a business enterprise of some sort. Maybe woodworking, photography or clothing. Maybe raising a steer, a horse, a sheep, goat or pig.
It's natural. Children like animals and many of the transplanted city folks had an empty barn or shed on the farm on which they now lived. The problem? They knew absolutely nothing about raising an animal. They didn't even know what kind of breed of animal to buy, how to feed it, house it or care for it.
Enter Voyager Press of Minneapolis, which has published many rural-oriented books including a half dozen written by Madison's Jerry Apps.
Voyager Press was bought by Motor Books, Inc. of Oceola, which has long published books about tractors, cars and trucks. They apparently saw a niche market in producing books for those jillions of people who went back to the farm to get away from the stresses of big city life or just wanted to live in the country.
Information about farming, for example raising just a couple pigs, one beef animal or a dozen chickens isn't readily available from university experts, federal agencies or the operators of commercial livestock operations.
Phil Hasheider of Sauk County is a farmer and writer who has written a number of books about his family geology. He also wrote "All Bottled Up," a history of bottling and delivering milk in the Sauk Prairie area.
"Voyager Press asked if I'd be interested in writing a book about raising cattle,'' Hasheider says. "It took me awhile to realize what they wanted, a book for the 'beginning farmer,' so I agreed."
"How To Raise Cattle" met the publisher's expectations and Hasheider was asked to write another book for the beginning hog raiser. His latest book is "How to Raise Pigs."
The book begins by explaining that raising pigs can be a young person's pathway into 4-H or FFA livestock programs since little investment is required and the pig can go from birth to market in six months or so. For others, a pig or two can fill a family refrigerator with meat. And it can be a source of satisfaction from working with an intelligent animal.
So, say your son or daughter wants to raise a cute little pig as a 4-H project and convinces you as a parent to go ahead with the idea. What's next, considering you don't know a pig from a sheepdog?
Hasheider's book will tell you, step by step. And show you, too. The book is full of photos, most taken by Phil and Mary Hasheider's son Marcus (a senior at Sauk Prairie High School), illustrating the text.
Assuming you have a place to raise pigs (the book even tells about buying a farm), you'll need to decide what kind of pig to purchase. Will it be a pregnant sow or a feeder pig? The book also tells you where to buy and what breed to purchase. There are a dozen or so to choose from.
The book discusses housing, feeding, building a fence for outdoor pasturing, taking care of the manure and hundreds of other details involved in raising a pig.
There's also a chapter on showing pigs at the county fair. It explains the ethics, rules and regulations you'll need in the show ring. After all, you don't want to look like a "know nothing" in front of the spectators at ringside.
If you want to go a step farther in the pig business and perhaps butcher a hog for your own meat, the chapter on "Home Butchering" will give you an idea of what's involved and how to do it.
Hasheider is now writing a third book on animal care, "How to Raise Sheep."
Are there really enough people interested in the basics of how to raise animals?
Consider that from its beginning as a farm-oriented program, the 4-H members today are mostly city born and raised. Cheryl Holloway of the Dane County UW-Extension office says that of the 100 members in each of the county's beef and hog projects, only about half actually live on farms.
The number of students in vocational agriculture programs nationally has shrink dramatically. And why not? Less than 2 percent of the nation's population actually live on farms today.
Steve Zibell has been the agriculture instructor at Oregon High School for 29 years and has seen the changes first hand.
"Of my 129 students today, only 10 live on farms,'' he says. "That doesn't mean that the others aren't interested in agriculture, far from it. Many had parents or grandparents who farmed and others love working with animals."
Jerry Wendt, the agricultural instructor at Stoughton High School, says 10 percent of his students were raised on a farm. Tonya Schneider of Sun Prairie High School agrees with that figure.
What are the numbers like in the heart of America's Dairyland in mid-Wisconsin, far from a large metro area? Cheryl Steinbach, ag instructor at Granton High School, adds that only 10 percent of her students were raised on farms.
And so it goes. It seems that a basic book like "How to Raise Hogs" is not only logical but imperative. (It's available at www.voyageuerpress.com or 800-458-0454.)
Phil Hasheider did a masterful job putting all the details into his two books. The books won't make you a cattle or hog expert, but will probably help you from looking like a fool.
John Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company.
