Good evening District 27. I want to share with you three photos from my time growing up on the farm when I had to work inside the farrowing pens of our two sow barns. One of the various chores I had growing up was to feed the sows after they had given birth to a full litter of piglets. There would be anywhere from 9 to 15 piglets born at any given time. Unfortunately, not all the piglets would survive because the sow would roll over at night and suffocate some of the piglets, or she would step on them. This occurred when the piglets would start squealing, agitating the sow because, like any good mother, her maternal instincts kicked in to protect her babies. Sadly, when she thinks she is protecting the baby piglet, she accidentally kills a pig or two in the process. It was my job to reach into the farrowing pen to grab the dead pigs and haul them out behind the barn back into the shelter belt that protected our farm from the northwest winds. This was no easy task since the sow would want to bite me if she saw me grabbing any of her newborn piglets.
Speaking of grabbing the piglets, it was also my job to give the newborn piglets their vaccination shots and their iron shots. I also had to snip a portion of the pig’s tails with a scissors and use some hydrogen peroxide to sterilize the cut. This was done so, as the piglets got older, the other pigs would not bite their tails. Imagine the thought of a bully pig coming along and biting your tail? This task would take some time as I had to gather all the piglets quickly and put them in the entrance while putting a feeding pan between the sow’s snout and me so I wouldn’t get bitten. Every once in a while, a very protective sow would charge me and I would have to quickly jump the farrowing pen fence to protect myself from getting bitten. Thankfully, I was never bitten by the sow on the other side of the fence.
Then I had to clean out the farrowing pens with a pitchfork. This was usually a two-man job. Once we had the manure loaded on the spreader, we would take the wheelbarrow and load it up with four bales of straw to bed the pens with new straw. The sows would be responsible for “making their own bed” with the fresh new straw. Again, this could lead to another pig dying as a result of the sow using her snout to “make her bed” only to find another dead pig or two the following morning.
Feed for the sows required us to use a grinder mixer where we would auger in oats and corn into the hopper, and then blend with protein pellets which were then unloaded into 50-gallon drum barrels that were located in the entranceway to the sow barns. This was a job that needed to be done often, during farrowing season, which was typically during the winter and spring months.
I also had to make sure that the heating lamps were working and plugged in to keep the piglets warm at night during the cold winter months. If one of the bulbs were burned out, then I had to change out the bulb and put in a new one. Thankfully, in all those years of using a heating lamp, there was never a fire in our sow barns with all those sows or piglets inside. Eventually, the heating lamps would go and my dad was able to install a propane heater to heat the barns in place of the lamps.
Once the piglets were mature enough to be weaned from their mother, we then transferred the piglets from the farrowing pens and loaded them up into the Chevy pickup truck with the rack on the back and off we would go to the hog barn where they would be dropped off with the other hogs that were “more mature.” It was kind of like dropping your kid off at school with all the older kids playing on the playground. Keep in mind, the sow at this point, was not happy. We would lead the sow with a piglet squealing so that the sow would leave the farrowing pen and then she would be guided back to the sow yard with the rest of the sows. If I recall, we had between 40 to 60 sows on the farm. They would always be in the sow yard and the hogs would be fenced in right next to the sows so that the sows could still see their “babies” grow up. It was also my job to feed the sows two wheelbarrows of feed every morning and evening. I would call the sows to come for the feed by tapping on the water pipe that would transport the water from the well pump to the stock tank for the hogs. Once the sows heard that noise, they came racing in to get their corn/oats mix feed. I would throw some in the trough, but also I had to put some on the ground so that all the sows would have room to eat and not fight with one another. It was a job that required you to be alert so you wouldn’t get bitten by a mean sow or the boar.
As the piglets matured, my brothers and I would then go into the hog barn to separate the females from the males and then castrate the males. This was a tough job because sometimes we didn’t get to this task right away and the hogs grew quickly requiring two of us to tackle the hog and then dad would quickly perform the “surgery” with a sharp rectangular double edge razor blade, similar to the ones he used for shaving himself. Every once in a while, my dad would send one of us kids to have mom string a needle and thread together so that he could mend one of the hogs who suffered from a hernia or had an infection that required extra attention. It was funny to watch my dad get upset when he had to rethread the needle and could not get it through the eye of the needle. It was a sign he needed to wear reading glasses and he didn’t have them on him at the time. Approaching the point of frustration, he would finally cave in and ask me to help him string the needle through the eyelet. He then would complete stitching the hog before it was released into a pen with those pigs that had been separated or castrated.
Saturday mornings from 8 AM to Noon were reserved for cleaning out the hog barn and sow barn farrowing pens along with other barns that needed to be cleaned. A pitchfork was our friend and we couldn’t leave the job until it was completed and the last load of manure was spread out in one of our fields. Was all of this a dirty job? Yes. We were so used to the hog smell that after a while, we never noticed it. The hog smell would follow us to school and we would not know it. The manure smell clung to the 5-buckle boots that we wore to protect our shoes from getting muddy and would smell up our lockers at school. My older brothers can attest to that.
Eventually, the hogs matured and fattened up and went to market. My dad, with several of my siblings, and I would separate the hogs that were ready for market and load them up through the chute into the pickup truck with a small gate to keep them from coming back down the chute. That would be the last time we would see those hogs. Sadly, those days are long gone. The small family farm hog operations of years gone by are now taken over by corporate hog farms and packing houses.
I share this story with you for three reasons: 1) It taught me early on that death is a fact of life and that we don't get out of this world without piercing the veil of death. I saw many animals die on the farm: piglets, calves, baby chicks, ducklings, kittens, dogs, turkeys, hogs, and cows die on the farm from natural causes. 2) It demonstrates to you, the voter, that I am willing to do the hard work and I am not afraid to get my hands dirty when it comes time to represent the voters of this district who have not had a voice at the table for many years. 3) Like my mom and dad who made their living off the land to make ends meet, I too will fight to protect the livelihood of our local farmers and ranchers. Farming and ranching is tough work and is not your typical 40-hour-a-week job. It requires much grit, sacrifice, and hard work. Our small family farmers and ranchers are responsible for putting food on our tables. If elected to be your senator, I will stand with our family farmers and ranchers by supporting legislation that promotes our family farms and ranches from being taken over by corporate elites that line the pockets of their shareholders at the expense of diminishing our small-town way of life in rural America. I will protect the rights of property owners from those who want to use eminent domain to put in a carbon pipeline across prime Ag land. The voice of rural South Dakotans needs to be heard within the Senate chamber since there are fewer and fewer representatives with a farming and ranching background. I will be that voice that will stand up for all of our farmers and ranchers across this great state. If you are directly or indirectly affiliated with Ag production, I would appreciate your vote on November 5th. God bless.
Full Disclosure: Because of my connection to farming, both the South Dakota Soybean Association (https://www.sdsoybean.org/) and the South Dakota Pork Producers PAC (https://www.sdpork.org/) have financially supported my political campaign.
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