COLUMBUS JUNCTION, Iowa — Twelve sows, two boars and 21 years ago, Mike Braun began raising pigs in a pasture on his Columbus Junction farm.

Today, there are 5,600 pigs, new born to adult, on his state-of-the-art operation, Mipa Hog Farms, and Braun loves looking after them.

“It doesn’t even seem like work,” said Braun.

After successfully caring for his first dozen sows, Braun got more intense and built a farrowing house and nursery for his farm and began selling pigs.

By 1994, he was taking his nearly 150 pigs from farrow to finish, which means he grew all the pigs he raised to market size.

It was around that time that he and his wife, Pam, wanted to have more time to attend their children’s school activities.

“We were row cropping and raising pigs seven days a week,” said Braun. “So we looked at expanding to justify hired labor so I could get away for school events and vacations.”

A growing business

In 1998, one of the feed companies Braun was involved with, Tri-Oak Foods Inc. of Oakville, offered him the opportunity to raise pigs on a contract basis.

“They would provide livestock, feed and vet services and I supplied the buildings, labor and utility costs,” said Braun. “The  company paid a set fee for the sows and pigs we raised.”

Braun said the situation was good for him because he prefers livestock production to marketing.

“I sold the last of my own market hogs and tried an on-site breeding project,” said Braun.

Tri-Oak brought 3,200 gilts — virgin pigs of breeding age - to Braun and he began to breed them using artificial insemination.

He farrowed his first pigs for Tri Oak in January 1999.

 Braun maintains multiple, large hog confinements with specific functions for each one. None of his pigs live outside. His animals are bred for their lean meat, which means they don’t have enough fat to keep them hot or cool when exposed to fluctuating temperatures.

And he doesn’t want them  exposed to viruses, which he can control by managing the environment in which the pigs live.

Braun isn’t worried about what his pigs might pass on to people. He’s concerned about the things people can give to his livestock.

“The whole swine flu thing is really a fallacy,” said Braun. “No pig herds in the United States to date have tested positive for the H1N1 virus that makes people sick.”

People can bring illnesses into Braun’s hog barns that they’ve picked up in parking lots and on the road, so vehicles used on the farm  are kept in designated areas.

His staff of 12 full-time and three part-time employees take two showers each time they enter one of his barns and two more on the way out.

Braun also provides clothing and laundry facilities at his farm.

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome is one disease Braun is particularly concerned about.

This primary virus leaves pigs open to attack by secondary viruses that can eventually kill them.

The illness can make piglets lethargic and cause sows to spontaneously abort after they’ve been bred.

Braun said farmers who have this issue can create  a vaccine for the illness and shut down the facility for six months or until blood tests come back normal.

The process

Braun and his staff have set target numbers for the operation.

“We like to breed about 350 sows a week, and farrow 280 a week,” said Braun. “We want to wean 2,500 pigs a week and we’ve had 2,600-2,700.”

Braun said pigs farrow, or give birth, a little less than three times a year and have a three-month, three-week and three-day gestation period.

Baby pigs are weaned in 17-20 days and it takes about seven days for a female to be ready to breed again.

The pigs are artificially inseminated, but a boar is still necessary to complete the process.

“We have a vasectimized boar on site and he secretes a pheromone in his saliva,” said Braun. “We have a motorized car that the boar gets in and we drive him by the sow. When she smells the pheromone she locks up and is ready to be bred. We have a trained technician who knows when a sow is in farrow heat.”

After a sow is bred, it is moved into the gestation house until it’s time to farrow.

On Mondays, Braun and his staff use a portable ultrasound machine to see if the embryos have been implanted in the uterus 28 days after the pigs are artificially inseminated.

Unbred sows go back into the “opportunity row” and start again

All the records are kept with the online service, Pig Care.

“It gives all the sow’s history, all her litters, the boar semen used to breed her and the day she was bred,” said Braun.

Pigs average about eight litters, also called parody I, parody II, etc., before they are sent to market themselves.

Family matters

Mike and Pam  are partners in the business. Pam is a special education teacher in the Columbus Community School District. Her parents, Carl and Joyce Sachs of Muscatine, are also partners.

 “We maintain a $450,000 payroll, so I feel like we’re contributing to the community,” said Braun. “We also have the fifth-highest valuation of property in the District as far as property taxes.”

The Brauns also employed their children — daughter Alexandra and sons Jacob, Samuel, Martin and Aaron — who were able to use their wages to pay for college.

“They learned a lot of satisfaction in doing it themselves,” said Braun.

Their eldest child, Alexandra, still works on the farm today. She began working on there when she was in junior high. She worked weekends in summers as she completed her degree in animal sciences at Iowa State University. She now runs the farrowing house.

Jacob is employed by the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. He and his wife, Maria, live in Columbus Junction with their son, Christopher.

Samuel is in the U.S. Army.

“He’s in Fort Drumm, N.Y., and heads for Iraq Oct. 14,” said Braun. “I hated to see him go, but we totally support what he wants to do.”

Son Martin is a student in the civil engineering program at the Des Moines Area Community College.

Son Aaron is in Cleveland with the Job Corps, studying to be a medical assistant.

“Maybe one day our grandkids would like to carry on our operation,” said Braun. “This is something Pam and I would like to leave for their use.”

Braun grew up on a smaller working farm in Muscatine County, where the SSAB steel plant now stands.

“My home farm had been there since the 1860s,” said Braun. “I always had a dream to go there and farm one day, but that is no longer possible. Hopefully, I’ve moved that dream here.”