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...