Over the last several months, labor has been a challenge in many industries—I’ve seen signs posted in restaurants asking patrons to “be nice to our staff, at least they showed up to work”. It’s just one more way the Covid-19 pandemic offers a glimpse into the reality of pig producers.
For several years now, labor has been one of the biggest (if not the biggest) challenges for pig producers all over the world. Finding quality labor and keeping them is extraordinarily difficult for pig producers. Despite all the great, new technology on the market to help with labor, we’ll never fully be able to replace farm workers because good production systems need human touch and interaction with pigs. That is the foundation of animal husbandry.
Our team at Crystal Spring has been in enough pig barns around the world to understand pig farmers’ labor challenges. One of our key takeaways is the need for innovative products that reduce the time producers spend on management and maintenance.
We set this goal over 15 years ago when we first introduced our patented EZ-Adjust™ feeder adjustment technology to provide easy, precise, and repeatable feed flow control without requiring multiple touches by a barn worker. In fact, during a recent visit to a farm in Brazil that just started using Crystal Spring feeders about a year ago, the farm owner and two of his barn workers told me one big advantage of our feeders is how easy they are to manage. They explained that while the tube-style feeders in the other barns on that site required adjustment at least 3 times per day to minimize feed waste, the Crystal Spring feeders only needed adjustment 3 times per entire turn! This saved them A LOT of time, energy, and labor costs!
In 2017, we introduced another innovative, time-saving solution: our Adaptive-Flow™ feeder drinker nipples. This technology adjusts to provide consistent and precise water flow in the feeder despite variable barn water pressures to make certain pigs receive the correct amount of water. It self-adjusts and requires little or no management from the farmer to make it work correctly. Once Adaptive-Flow™is set to the correct water flow at the beginning of the turn, it only needs to be adjusted as the pigs get bigger and require more water… which only 2 more times during the entire grow-out period.
I could keep going on about the labor cost savings of our S2-Series farrowing feeders, our Freedom Stall™ free access stall, and our other Adaptive-Flow™ watering products (including our recently introduced Quick-Connect valve!), but your time is valuable so I’ll let you go. If you want more information about how our products can help you save on labor costs, please contact us or one of our global network of dealers. We’d be more than happy to figure out which products will work best for you.
For more information about how our products can help you reduce labor costs, contact our team at info@cshe.com or on WhatsApp/Phone +1 (402) 227-8228. Visit our website at www.crystalspring.com to find your local authorized dealer or to get detailed information about our products.
