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Jonathan Marry completed a 10-year modernisation marathon on his pig farm in Broomfield, Collon, Co Meath, earlier this spring.
He gave a tour of his 540-sow farm on Thursday to participants in the second farm walk organised by Macra in preparation for the Young Farmer of the Year competition 2019.
The finishing shed, where 300 pigs leave for the factory every week, was the latest building to be refurbished in February.
Jonathan showed the computerised feeding system that supplies specific diets to each section as required.
The computerised system pumps liquid feeds to the troughs, where probes constantly monitor the need for fresh feed.
Advanced temperature control systems also sound the alarm and alert Jonathan on his phone if his pigs are 3°C too cold or too hot, or if there is an issue with the feed system.
Join me for a tour of the farm of Jonathan Marry of @www_pigspit_ie who was @fbd_ie/@MacranaFeirme Young Farmer of the Year in 2015: https://t.co/bMSz7VWwbU pic.twitter.com/xbkIVIHcZi
— Thomas Hubert ?? (@tom_hubert) June 16, 2019
The design of the weaners’ shed caught the eye of visitors.
Jonathan decided to split the weaning period into two phases as pigs quickly become bigger.
After three weeks, they move to a room where mezzanine-type decks invented by the farmer add one third to the floor space to avoid overcrowding.
“I first thought of knocking down walls to create a better flow,” he said, but this solution proved cheaper.
“If I was building a new unit, would I do it again? Yes, this system proves to work well for us,” he added. When asked for the most important components to running a successful pig farm, Jonathan said: “Staff, pig health, and square footage per pig.”
Since 2009, Jonathan has invested heavily into the farm. In the middle of it all, he won the Macra-FBD Young Farmer of the Year award in 2015.
He encouraged all visitors to enter, though he says he still hasn’t got used to public speaking!
His next move is to install solar panels that would knock one third off his electricity bills and pay for themselves in four years.
He is waiting for TAMS approval and planning permission for this.
While three full-time staff manage the herd on a daily basis, Jonathan is often on the road with a diversification business, Pigspit.ie, which specialises in pig-on-a-spit and BBQ catering from family occasions to large corporate events nationwide.
“We were busy in May with communions and confirmations, the remained of the summer will be mainly weddings and corporate events,” he said.
“It’s farm to fork, I’m proud of the high standard and welfare of our pigs and it’s my passion to take it to end-consumers.”
This is a way of generating additional income. To have a sustainable pig farm, the farmer needs to achieve 50c/kg margin over the feed cost, but Jonathan says this has been 44c on average in the last 10 years. Despite this challenging market, he maintains a positive outlook for the near future in pig production.
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