Carolyn Thomas lavishes Attention On Hogs, Reaps Rewards
BY JOYCE BUPP
York Co. Correspondent
STEWARTSTOWN - Carolyn
Thomas has a philosophy about
pigs.
“A pig is a lot like a dog,” she
observes. “I guess they just like
attention.”
This Stewartstown farm woman
should know. She has worked with
pigs for many years and currently
handles the bulk of the day-to-day
chores for about ISO hogs, in
cluding 26 sows and three boars.
Carolyn and her husband,
Charlie, maintain a herd of
purebred Hampshires and a few
Durocs, plus feed out market hogs
on the former Sechrist Auction
farm they acquired nine years ago.
Although the barn was set up for
limited hog production, the
Thomas’ have remodeled and
expanded to accommodate then
present hog numbers.
For the last several years, the
couple has taken to the local show
circuit in both breeding and
market classes. The wrapup of the
recent Farm Show Hampshire
competition marked a high point
for Carolyn in her hog-exhibiting
career as one of her February gilts
claimed the grand champion
ribbons over a lineup of con
tenders.
The champion, Bam Kaw-Li-Ga
4-4, was one of five of the Thomas’
homebreds in the Farm Show’s
Hampshire February gilt class. In
addition to the first place win,
carolyn took the fourth through
seventh places out of ten, two of
those with substitutions for her
original March class entries. She
also claimed the third award in the
January age category.
In the followup Farm Show hog
sale, Carolyn’s champion gilt
brought spirited bidding. Holding
out to the end for a price of $1,025,
was buyer William Hilty of Mt.
Pleasant.
“And we went with no intentions
of even getting fourth,’’ chuckles
this pleased Hampshire hog en
thusiast.
The fancy black hogs with the
broad whitish-pink stripe around
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Carolyn is well-pleased wiljh , success. jir insulate jxagon-v jrrowing
unit. The six, wedge-shaped individual pens feature automatic waterers safety rails and
creep-feeding for pigs. I
their middles reign for a reason on
the Thomas farm.
“Hamps usually top the carcass
classes,” confirms Carolyn, citing
several examples. “They’re a
better meat-type hog.”
But the Thomas’s didn’t
originally start with Hampshires.
Their beginning batch of gilts were
saved from the first group of
feeder pigs and were a “mix of
everything,” from Landrace to
Spots to Polands. A Hamp boar
brought in proved to be a non
breeder, and was replaced with a
Berkshire.”
“We had baby pigs of all colors,”
Carolyn remembers.
Foundation stock for some of the
present bloodlines trace back to
two Hamp purebred gilts and a
boar from a Maryland breeder,
and a bred gilt Charlie bought at a
Farm Show sale for Carolyn’s
birthday. Two Duroc gilts and a
Duroc boar vary the hog pen
“color sheme” and add to
crossbreeding options for market
pigs.
Already, Carolyn is looking
ahead to die fall shows with pure
and crossbred litters for market
classes from farrowings over the
next two months. She’s been
especially successful in carcass
class competition.
At the 1986 Keystone In
ternational Livestock Exposition
at Harrisburg, her Hampshire
barrow topped the heavyweight
class. In the carcass judging that
followed, it placed third over all
breeds, from a total of 247 entries.
Loin eye of that third-place overall
winner was 6.3 inches, second only
to the 7.4 loin eye scored by the
carcass champion. With a length of
31.5 inches, the back fat of .8, the
carcass on the rail totaled 92.91
pounds, and acceptability of 58.07
percent of the slaughter weight.
York Fair usually brings more
awards for Thomas hogs, including
at least one carcass class cham
pion in past years. During the 1986
York contest, entrants judged the
carcass class. Carolyn claimed
second honors in judging, while her
Hamp entry scored sixth on foot
/olyi jmas ai jsband, jrlie, put finishing touches on their Farm
Show champion Hampshire gilt, homebred Bam Ka-Li-Ga 4-4.
and fourth on the rail.
Both Carolyn and Charlie are
becoming accomplished judges,
and Carolyn has topped heavy
national competition in type
judging. A first-place finish in
ringside show and carcass judging
at KILE earned Charlie a $5O prize
a few years ago.
Some of the Thomas’ success
with hogs begins, according to
Carolyn, in the living room of their
comfortable farm home. There,
Charlie studies hog industry
publications, trends, and
bloodlines, and plans most of the
crosses before he and Carolyn
hand breed their sows.
“Make sure Charlie gets some
credit for this,” insists Carolyn of
her husband who is employed full
time by AMP, Inc. “He really
wants me to do this.”
Farrowing season is hectic, but
enjoyable for Carolyn, who says
that she really looks forward to
seeing what each litter of piglets
looks like.
Near their due date, sows are
moved into the Thomas’ unique
farrowing house. The hexagon
shaped building originated as a
package unit from a Nebraska
firm and had been converted for a
veal calf use when Carolyn and
Charlie purchased the farm. They
insulated and remodeled it into a
six-unit farrowing facility. Each
unit is a pie-wedge shape, with
individual waterers, safety rails,
and a heat unit and creep feeder
Her flock of 100 heavy layers keeps Carolyn and friends
well supplied with brown eggs.
with pallet trough at the center to
supply all six pens. Because the
watering units have shallow
drinking bowls, baby pigs find
water and leam to drink it when
they are just hours old, a definite
advantage to their well-being.
Carolyn is convinced.
Between farrowing seasons, the
pens are scrubbed down and
disinfected, part of the Thomas'
strict adherence to sanitation
measures to hold down exposure of
their breeding stock to disease.
Baby pigs are started on a
Master Mix pallet, but only when
they’re ready for solid feed.
“I don’t even put feed there for
them for three weeks,” Carolyn
explains. “When they’re ready to
eat, 1 want them to have fresh feed,
not feed with dust and dirt in it. ”
Occasionally, a litter may in
clude a weak or extra small pig
which gets hand-feeding attention
from Carolyn. For that purpose, a
special supplement she calls
‘ ‘ chocolate milk’ ’ is kept on hand.
Calling a teaspoon a “must" in
the farrowing house, Carolyn takes
tiny portions of the booster liquid
or strips of milk from the sow and
spoons it into a newborn’s mouth.
Using her little finger, she teaches
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* *
the piglets to suck and swallow the
fluid, and continues to feed them in
that manner until they are able to
dnnk from a shallow can.
Of course, a hand-raised pig can
form a special attachment to its
source of sustenance. One 200-
pound hog thus saved still shows
affection for Carolyn when she
comes in the pen by rubbing at her
leg.
“But you can’t give 150 pigs
individual attention,” she grins.
Sows with questionable tem
perament are weeded out of the
Thomas’ herd in a hurry, since
Carolyn does most of the day-to
day caring for them. Even the
most trustworthy, however, may
sometimes turn on a caregiver
when baby pigs come into the
picture.
Carolyn still carries marks on
her leg where a testy mother bit
her repeatedly one day last year.
Fortunately, she was wearing
several layers of clothing, which
the sow’s sharp teeth were mostly
unable to penetrate. But the biting
attack left large bruises for many
weeks; and, one sow which could
never again be trusted went out the
road.
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