When you meet Janae Metzger, the first thing you will notice is that she is an intelligent, friendly, and enthusiastic individual. And it is these very traits that have made her so successful in hiring and onboarding new barn employees. Metzger is the Assistant Manager and Employee Developer at Pig Hill in Alvord, Iowa. Her successes in the area of human relations and training have caught the attention of much bigger operations, with several farms hoping to learn her ways and duplicate her success.

Farrowing is one of the most precarious areas on a farm. Everything leads up to and flows from this one activity. So it only makes sense that farrowing rooms should get attention too! We have gathered a list of six important factors to consider in your farrowing room. 

We have to say it... we don't love the phrase gilt training—if only because it is so misunderstood within the ESF world. When we talk about gilt "training", we are referring to channeling the gilt's innate curiosity into learning a task.

Self-conditioning gilts by gradually exposing them to elements of ESF from a very early stage puts less pressure on the pigs and staff, and allows the animals to learn the system naturally and calmly. But self-conditioning animals and giving them time to adjust isn't just the secret to ESF success, it is the foundation of good animal husbandry. Learn more about how we accomplish it below. 

When you are training gilts for ESF pens, you need a certain type of personality working with those girls. But it may not be the type of personality you expect.

Jon Parker loves working with our clients to fix their problems, both big and small, within group housing. A big part of his job is working with the Nedap ESF hardware and the Velos software to make sure that all our customers can make the most of the robust data available from the system. Nedap recently rolled out some new options for backups and notifications so we asked Jon to explain what is available. 

It seems like we never know what kind of late summer we are going to get. It could be hot and dry, it could be unseasonably cool. For most people, hot and dry summer days are a reminder to relax and lounge around the pool, but if you're a barn owner, you should be thinking about how you can use those hot summer days to clean your barns. Here are some tips to help your summer barn cleaning run a bit more smoothly.

We recently had the exciting opportunity to work with Topigs Norsvin as they opened their groundbreaking Delta Canada boar testing barn in Woodlands, Manitoba. This project marks an exciting time in boar research, where intricate data analysis and responsive genetic selection can improve stock in less time. Below we share a time-lapse of the project and an explanation of the overall impact on the pork genetics landscape. 

When it comes to building a new sow barn, there are a lot of considerations that factor into the final design. One of the things we've learned as we've designed barns for our customers is that everyone has a wish list. We've also learned that while many customers know they want a less stressful setup, they may not necessarily know that barn technology can help with that goal. With that in mind, here is an infographic with five technologies that should not just be on your "wish" list, but your "must-have" list. 

If you took psychology in high school or college you've probably heard about Pavlov's dogs, but swine are just as suggestible as dogs. With a little creative thinking you can avoid potential training mishaps and prevent your gilts from developing bad habits.

In the last few years Meishan boars (pronounced May Shan) have grown in popularity with producers across North America, and it isn't just for their dashing good looks. While Meishans aren't much to look at—they honestly look like a mix between a basset hound, a pug, and a pig—their breed characteristics are well-suited to open checks and boar stations with automatic heat detection.