Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 14, 1973 18 Lewis Heads Farm Dept. George M. Lewis will be joining the staff of Farmers First National Bank as vice president in charge of the Agricultural Department, as of Aug 1. He is currently serving as area ad ministrator and vice president for the Commonwealth National Bank. A native of Almond, N. Y., Lewis is a graduate of Cornell University, where he majored in poultry science and agricultural economics. Lewis is active in the Lancaster Chapter of the American Business Club and has been treasurer of the Board of the Farm and Home Foundation, Lancaster County, since 1968. He is also on the board of directors of Lititz Improvement, Inc. He and his wife, Lorraine, are parents of five children, and reside in Landisville. They are members of Chiques Methodist Church. Henkel (Continued From Page I) had to raise those pigs by hand, and that experience taught me the real value of a good sow. “We were lucky in a way, though, because my partner at the time, Joe Little, was married to a registered nurse. Her ex perience was really helpful in getting those pigs through the fir st few weeks.” After the pigs got too big for their pens in the basement, they were moved to a pair of tractor trailer bodies parked where the Henkel house now stands. “At first, we still had some infected pigs on the farm,” Henkel ex plained. “We had to keep the clean animals completely separate. The trailers were off the ground, they were far enough away, and they saved us the expense of building a new barn which we knew would only be used for a little while. And we also figured that if something happened, we could find a tractor in a hurry and pull those animals away from the farm. “We were pretty proud of the fact that we had a 73 percent survival rate from the litters we raised by hand. Most sows don’t do any better.” Today, the Henkel herd numbers 125 purebred Yorkshire sows. There’s a farrowing bam, a nursery and a larger barn holding sows and some hogs that are grown out for breeding or butchering. “We do sell most of our young pigs to the labs,” Henkel commented, “but we also sell maybe 100 head a year for breeding stock, and we keep one small butcher supplied with pigs.” In order to safeguard his herd’s flock, Henkel operates under strict sanitation rules. Once a hog leaves the driveway, it never comes back to the farm. If a hog goes to a show, it is either but chered or sold. Visitors may be shown around the farm, but they never, never get inside one of the three hog barns. “Getting boars for new blood was a problem,” Henkel said, “but now I visit SPF herds in the Midwest every two or three years to get a few boats that I’m cer tain are clean.” SPF stands for specific pathogen free, and it means that a hog is certified to be free of pneumonia and rhinitis. “Ours is like an SPF herd, but in order to be certified, the pigs have to be born by Cesarean. I’d rather not do that, because you can only get two litters at the most from a sow that way.” Henkel’s hogs are constantly checked to be sure that they’re disease-free. Several times a year, Henkel has some of his animals’ noses and lungs checked by the University of Penn sylvania’s New Bolton Center at Kennet Sguare. If either disease is present it will show up in these checks. The labs he works with also keep Henkel informed on the state of his herd health. Nothing is sure in the business of farming, and that includes Henkel’s market. That’s why he aims for high quality animals which would sell on the open market. “If the labs decide to stop buying tomorrow, I’d be in trouble if I weren’t trying to raise animals that were meaty in addition to being disease-free. “And even though I get a premium price from the laboratories, I’ve got to watch my costs just like everybody else.” Except for a small amount of alfalfa that's added to his feed, Henkel grows none of his feed requirements on his 30 acres. “I buy corn by the trailerload and mix it with supplement. When I started in this business, I wanted to concentrate just on raising hogs, not on growing crops. I’ve become convinced over the years that that was the right decision. I‘m still convinced, even with new AUREOMYNH SUUHET SOLUBLE POWDER Drinking water treatment stops bacterial enteritis (scours) in pigs Two most effective and time tested products— AUREOMYCIN' and SULMET’—now combined in a water soluble formulation. Sfanrnaf me! ft soluble pot/pm I AVAILABLE FROM YOUR Kmm^—3*l FAVORITE ANIMAL HEALTH SUPPLIER Jj Palatable: Readily accepted by swine of all ages. Easy to use: Conven ient drinking water treatment. today's feed prices. 1 know I might be paying a lot for feed, but I haven’t got a lot of money tied up in land and equipment, either.” Henkel is the son and grandson of New Jersey hog farmers. He’s a Rutgers graduate, with an MS in animal husbandry. Mrs. Henkel, Carol, is also a tran splanted Jerseyite and a Rutgers graduate. l'-’
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers