Rant post sorry...

I know nobody ever reads this blog anymore so I kinda just use it as an outlet for my random ramblings and problems anymore it seems, but it doesn't really matter cause nobody reads it and the random people who do probably have know idea who I am or what the heck is going on anyways...
Lately has been kinda busy... Vironica has been left without a vehicle for the 4th time this summer and it doesn't look like the vehicle is going to be fixed any time soon due to financial struggles, so... shes having to hitch rides from people to work and any time we go home we get to listen to the parents chew her ass for awhile (shes not completely innocent, but she feels bad enough already and was literally trying to avoid being around our parents to avoid getting harped on even more... I'm missing my grandma a good deal right now, feel guilty for not visiting more, but I visit every time I get close to home but it still makes me feel like a pathetic excuse for a human being as I have only seen her 2 times this summer for more than a few minutes here and there. My lovely knees have been acting up again due to my OCD (osteocondritis dissicans, not obsessive compulsive disorder), this disorder causes a lack of blood flow to the joint in my knee so the cartilage and bone die and break off and grind and catch in my knee when I walk... if I do a lot of walking or running/jogging my knees always get bruises on my knees due to it... I have gotten used to normal pain over the years but all the walking I do at work tends to make things worse... work/internship has been challenging. I'm making it work somehow though... most days I'm done around 4 or so... sometimes later and sometimes earlier if I'm lucky, but that doesn't save me from 1am alarm calls... I had one last week that I went out to check and then accidentally locked myself out of my work truck, Roni wouldn't answer her phone so I had to call Nick so i didn't get home until after 3 that morning and had to be up at 5:30 to meet with the guy to get the spare key and drive me out to the site that way I could meet up with one of the other supervisors at my other site... today i got told i am getting even more things added to my plate... i currently supervise 7 sites and 2 of them are currently marketing, but now my superior decided to add another site that isnt even mine that I must market as well and it's bigger than my 2 other sites put together... along with having to do 2 ride alongs a week for the next 3 weeks now too where I have to spend the whole day riding around with them and if I got other stuff to get done that day wait until they are finished with their 8-9 hour day and then go get my stuff done. Roni another one of my friends bug me a bit sometimes complaining about their 6 hour days, when the one person and I both worked sow farms they always used to say that they got out earlier because they worked harder, but now that I am a supervisor and can see numbers I know it's because their site has almost 1000 sows less than mine did and just as many if not 2-3 more most days because the barn I was at was severely understaffed... and others who co koimplain about hard or rough days although I will give credit to the one friend who actually blacked out at work due to falling but was back the next day, but I heard one of the interns complaining about getting up at 7, or some of the interns who have a project at one of my sites were complaining about picking up piglets and having to feel their joints and write it down, I understand its hard but there are plenty of jobs that could be worse... even though I'm a supervisor I still do a lot of hard physical labor today... at one of my sites i had to pull out 2 dead pigs... mind you these are market sized pigs so 250+ pounds minimum, we don't have a cart or anything just the snare hook to put on their leg and move them with pure muscle.... all while trying to keep the other market hogs from escaping out into the aisle all by yourself... I have also learned market hogs are quite the characters, they absolutely love to bite and chew on anything they can get a hold of... it's part of why we can't keep water hoses, brooders or the temperature probes very low because they will RIP them down and break things. My one site has some very aggressive market hogs in it right now... you can't stop in the middle of the alley way because they will jump up on the gates with their front feet and bite your arms... the only way you can walk the pens is to carry the razz can and rattle paddle with you and dont stop moving or you will be surrounded and bitten in the legs/bum... just today marking hogs I got a pocket ripped off by a hog who tried to bite me but thankfully got the pocket instead of me, I have only been pushed down a few times marking hogs but I'm actually a bit of afraid of them anymore, give me 13 gilts to move and I got it handled no problem at least they wont try to bite me and I can use a panel, Roni watched me market hogs once... shes worked with hogs for 2 years now and she says she would be afraid to get in the pens too... I have had a hog freak and run between my legs because I was taking a step forward so my legs were just far enough apart for him to see an opening and decide to try to run through... me being so short he wasn't able to fit under my legs like I have seen hogs do with other supervisors, I just got my legs swept out from under me and thankfully was able to catch myself on my elbows instead of my face... among other things we do a lot of pulling and sorting of younger pigs, so thinking of wean piglets only 12 lbs or so people complain about doing cinco but it's easier to do a bunch of small piglets than that only several of the big guys, it also makes me laugh a bit when people complain about giving circo Vacation at the sow farms, most farms have 2 or more people giving shots to 400-800 pigs, while in finishing wean pigs it's not unusual for us to just do our normal daily treatments of 100+ pigs or even more on a sick site with 1 or 2 people, when one of my farms was sick i did 200 treatments and left the rest for the manager when he finally gotthere as I had to go to another site and he treated 150 more after that.  Or vaccinations, I currently supervise 40,800 pigs, and 2 of those sites currently have 10,400 pigs in each of them, almost a whole day is dedicated to vaccinating 1/4 of the site which is 2 barns each broken into 2 rooms so 1 room is 2500 pigs which is more than some sow farms will even wean each week. Most people dont realize how hard the hog industry is until they work in it and I guess some just aren't cut out for the hard work it takes, I'm enjoying most parts of my internship and have loved taking advantage of all the cool opportunities I have as an intern vs a regular employee, golf outings, trapshooting, leadership pannels, processing plant and feedmill tours, most of the interns dont realize how good they have it compared to regular employees. I'm just glad I can ssee my work paying off in my pigs and I am grateful for all the hard work and learning opportunities, working this full time and being able totry to balance the work and home life (especially the several times I have been called out for hours in the evening) has been difficult, I dont live at home anymore, I buy 98% of my own food with the exception of hot dogs which my mom buys from Sam's club, make my own food, do laundry, clean the house, pay rent and electric bills, but also make time for family and fun and the great connections this internship has offered, some of the advice I have been given at different events and gatherings is worth its weight in gold, not just work advice but life advice too... yeah I'm thankful for the leadership pannels but the fluffy prepared answers they had for that aren't even half as insightful as the stuff that comes from the heart during spontaneous conversations at these events, yes I dont get to go home to my parents and siblings every night or see my grandma or ride the horses as often as I would like but they know me spending time at these events is me bettering myself, making important connections and building me up as a person, I only have 3 weeks left of the internship, but you best bet i try my hardest to make the best out of it as I can, someday when a potential employer calls and asks about me i want them to say she was a good worker, took every opportunity to learn connect and better herself, will show up day or night if it means doing a good job and taking care of animals, I pitty the people who dont grab life by the reins and take every opportunity they get to better themselves even if it means taking short term sacrifices to get there.

Internship/summer so far...

Sorry in advance for all the typos that will probably happen as I am typing this on my phone. So all I have done this summer really is work. Although I did camp for 2 days and went to adventureland one day I have been busy working/interning otherwise. This summer I am doing a finishing internship, in which I'm in the same role as a Jr supervisor...a senior supervisor has around 20 sites while a Jr supervisor has around 10 instead. Most people think it's a easy job that I get to boss people around all day... but in reality thats far from the truth... I'll walk you through a typical work week for me... sundays have mostly been days for me so far, week days I usually wake up at 6, I am on the road or at the wearhouse by 7 (they dont open till 7 so I usually dont have a choice what time to start... I pick up any of the orders that I have out and then head out to my sites... what site I am going to depends on how things are going at each of my sites which I have 7 sites which currently house around 40,800 pigs between all of them. Mondays I tend to go to my marketing sites that way I can decide how many loads of pigs to sell the next week and and then my sites that are getting weaned pigs in because I need to figure out what day the site will be full and figure out if I need to do a split load and get ahold of the sow farm and other finisher site if I have to do a split load, or it's even better if I can keep ahead of it and avoid having to take a split load anyways. While I am at a site I look for many things that I have to eventually fill out on a site visit report. Here is a list of things I must consider while filling out a site visit. It is the responsibility of the farm manager that I supervise to do these items and I come in to make sure they are done, help them get these things done if I have  the time to stay and help them and much more...

1. Do pigs have feed/water
2. Is the ventilation in the barn properly adjusted 
3. Are individual pigs being identified and treated
4. Are wean pigs being grueled/mat feed properly
5. Is the contractor using proper medications
6. Is the contractor using the correct dosage of meds
7. Is the contractor properly documenting usage of meds 
8. Are pigs being pulled and sorted properly 
9. Is spacing in the pen adequate
10. Is the contractor identifying and euthanizing the correct pigs
11. Is there proper pest control on site (bait box/fly bait) 
12. Site appearance (mowing/trash/feed pads)
13. Is the contractor ordering feed
14. Shower in/out policy enforced 
15. Dedicated boots for mortality removal 
16. Is the critical care pen well documented
17. Is the contractor following wean to finish pigs standard operating procedures guidelines..
18. Monitoring pig health

A lot of what I do is monitor the pigs health... I am in all of my sites every week if not more often... I keep an eye on them to ensure we try to keep ahead of any issues we encounter. I am kind of the go between from out contractor they will call me if they notice something while I am gone and then I will come out to take a look and contact one of the company vets go get their recommendations and medication approval. I then have to order and pick up the meds. I have 5 young sites and I can definatly say young pigs get sick very easily.. I have one farm that has been on genguard, penchlor, denagard, asprin, then genguard again, and we had to do extra work mat feeding with oral iron and inject the worse pigs with iron shots because either the sow farm missed a lot of pigs or did a bad job giving them iron shots when they were little. One if my other sites has been run on genguard, blue2 and aspirin and then genguard on the younger pigs again too. I have also had to learn to collect tissues and do joint swabs and brain swabs as well. In order to take tissue samples I need to choose a minimum of 3 pigs... the ideal pigs are ones who are just exhibiting symptoms of the disease but have not been treated yet... this makes me sad sometimes because with treatment they would most likely survive so having to euthanize them to take samples can be a bit upsetting as they usually are pretty active and normal at that point only just starting to get sick but it's the sacrifice of a few for the greater good of the whole population. After the pig is euthanized it gets laid on it back... I cut open its arm pit area and then cut from in front of the breast bone towards the chin of the pig to make a handle of sorts... then I have to find the spot just under the breastbone and then pull back on my handle and cut with my knife towards the hind end of the pig in order to expose all the internal organs... I then make a cut in their rib cage cartilage and have to take my hands and open up their rib cage in order to access their heart and lungs. I take 2 sample bags... one will have fermeldin (very similar to fermeldahide) and the other will just contain the tissues, I take tissues from the heart lungs spleen liver small intestine large intestine cecum and kidneys. To do joint swabs I cut between the knee joint and use a swab collection kit and for a brain swab it's the same thing except getting to the pigs brain is harder you have to go near the back of the head and go forward and then you can get the swabs.  Another test we can do for other things is a saliva test... we take cotton ropes and hang them in the pens... the pigs then chew on them and after that we wring outthe saliva into test tubes... and then we take all samples back to the lab at the main office. We have to pass the samples thougb the window outside however because if we step foot in the lab we need 1 day downtime before we can go on farm again. Among the other things I have to do is go to 2 meetings every week, Tuesday meeting is our marketing meeting. During this we discuss what sites have that are sending hogs to market and how many, what sites are getting in wean pigs, what sites are being washed, and more.. meetings on Friday are focused on pig health and we have the meeting with out vet and she talks about the problems she has seen been going on with pigs throughout the sow farm and finishing side. Another thing I have to do is market my pigs to go out to market. I have to go in and individually mark each pig that will be put on the market truck. My load so far have gone out on Monday so I spend my Saturdays marking... its a struggle because market hogs run and push into you and try chasing and biting you and occasionally succeed... overall I'm definatly learning a lot though.. there is lots more stuff that I have to do that I dont really have time to list out haha other than mentioning I'm on call all the time. . Like the other night I worked a full day and the got a call later that night and had to go back out for four more hours...