The week of July the 23rd was spent with only a few days out on the road as I had the annual NJSA Junior Board retreat to tend to. I am incredibly excited to serve as your 2012-2013 NJSA President. I take every opportunity presented to share with people just how fortunate I have been this year with the once in a lifetime opportunities that have come my way. I truly feel privileged!
Monday the 23rd I had to make the stop in Chrisman and look in at a Yorkshire herd that has made a rather significant impact on the breed in the past several years. Tracy Lorenzen has an infatuation with making Yorkshire better each generation. His determination is paralleled by only a select few breeders in the business. Like many visits I have been on, the sow herd here is the element that allows success to come Tracy’s way. I saw a few baby hogs here that may be showing up at a few shows here as fall approaches so be sure to check them out.
Tuesday the 24th I spent in Morrison, IL. Now this wasn’t exactly what I would consider a herd visit but it was time well spent. I met up with Justin Whitley of PureTek genetics to do some scanning at a finishing floor near Morrison. For the duration of the time I was present, we scanned about 500 head of fat hogs and collected the data for research. I was glad to be able to lend a helping hand.
Tuesday and Wednesday of that week would be spent in the office with the rest of your 2012-2013 NJSA Junior Board planning events for the year. Friday the 27th I spent some time neat Lafayette making a couple of herd visits that I knew at some point during the summer I needed to make, as I completed them it sure made sense why.
Del Guard and I spent a better portion of the morning discussing the belted breed and Del’s approach to how he aims to better the breed. Del has got a pair of boars he is dialing in for Indiana. The first boar hog would be an OPTIMIST son born the mid part of January. This one I appreciated for being a well balanced hog that shouldn’t take your belted hogs in the wrong direction. Del has got a HOMEMADE 17-3 boar that I really liked. This hog was big footed, square made and had plenty of shape. Maybe the best thing about this hog was his ability to tie it all into a well designed functional package. Look this one up come Indiana.
A visit that will stick with me for quite some time will be one I made near Chalmers at a place people recognize as Purple Power Boar Stud. Chris didn’t hesitate to make sure I understood his philosophies and general outlook on this purebred and crossbred deal. This is not to say other breeders didn’t by any means, but this along with the hogs I saw may be in equilibrium in terms of what I took from this visit. I really appreciate when breeders do all the talking simply because I can come away with that much more that I didn’t already know. I won’t go into detail about the hogs in large part because I really don’t need to, Purple Power is no stranger to the business and most of you are very familiar with their impact on the hog breeding business. One thing I will say about a hog there is WOW is still WOW. Age on that hog has not compromised his ability to impress you from a phenotypic stand point. Chris has got an extremely deep set of Yorkshire and Duroc hogs on the place. Many of you will end up having to do one of two things; using the boars at Purple Power or trying to beat their offspring. I’ll let you decide that.
Crossroads Genetics was another visit I enjoyed on Friday. I was glad I stopped in because Adam has certainly got some boars on stud that are surely a force to be reckoned with. Adam has got a good understanding of what it takes to survive in the semen selling business and I appreciate his time for letting me stop through.
It’s my pleasure to chat with you folks over the phone about what I have seen so please do not hesitate to continue to do so. See all of you over the next few weeks.
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