Gehl Mittelsted is impressed with the power of automatic sorting.

			Gehl Mittelsted

So much so that he – like Keith Needham at Buffalo Ridge Ranch, profiled in another article – has declared it “a prerequisite” for all new growers contracting with his family’s Squealers Pork, Inc., Austin, MN.

Sort loss is less than a dime a pig at Mittelsted’s grower facilities equipped with FAST II™, compared to 30 to 40 cents per pig at Squealers’ sites with traditional facilities. “Sort loss is a lot tighter,” says Mittelsted, adding that though his field representatives have always done a good job at sorting, the human eye can’t possibly nail pig weights as accurately as a scale.

It takes the guesswork out of sorting. It makes it more a science than an art,” he says.

Mittelsted says he and Squealers’ field reps are very impressed with the advanced information available with Farmweld’s second generation sorting system, FAST II™. “We try to schedule market loads out about three weeks, and the daily average gain information gives us a better handle on when the pigs are going to hit,” says Mittelsted. Squealers Pork sells to multiple packers, each with specific weight ranges for premiums. Mittelsted says that by having FAST II at several sites, he is able to better match loads to premium programs. “Because it is all in front of you in black and white, you can put loads together,” says Mittelsted.

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of FAST II is that it allows Squealers to sell pigs at heavier average weights than ever before. That helps the operation avoid extended periods with idle pig spaces, according to Mittelsted.

He explains the scale eliminates an old game of marketing chicken. In the past, Mittelsted says he would have been compelled to pull out the first cut of pigs at the 14th week of an 18-week turn to avoid getting caught with overweight pigs. With the ability to monitor exact weights, Mittelsted says he feels comfortable leaving pigs in the barn until they reach weights just under the cutoff.

The only way the barns make him money is through the sale of pork, states Mittelsted. Using FAST II to closely monitor the weights as they edge toward the packer cutoffs, “maximizes the finishers by keeping pigs on feed,” he concludes.