Iowa Producer Opts for FAST™

			Joe Rotta created a "nursery within the food court" to handle small wean-to-finish pigs. Rotta is pictured in his new 2,400-head facility near Storm Lake, IA.

Iowa producer Joe Rotta opted for the FAST™ (Farmweld Automatic Sorting Technology) system for a new 2,400-head wean-to-finish facility because it promised to cut the amount of hired labor needed for sorting pigs and reduce sort loss. He also figured by using super large pens and no alleyways, he would capture more useable space in each 1,200-head room. "Getting rid of the alleyway saves you about 60 pig spaces per room" says Rotta, who is based in Merrill, IA.

Rotta's new barn is a wean-to-finish building. To help accommodate just-weaned pigs, gating can be arranged within the food courts so there are four separate areas for sorting different sized baby pigs. "Some of those first rations are expensive," says Rotta. "If you can get bigger pigs off of them sooner, there should be some savings."

Rotta also set up the ventilation and heating systems to create warm zones in these same areas. "We sort of created a nursery within the food court," says Rotta, who has previously utilized wean-to-finish facilities with 85 pigs per pen. Rotta is anxious to see how the baby pigs do in 300-head pens (or 600-head if double filling is used) but says the facility adaptations and his employees' experience handling small pigs should help get pigs started successfully.