ALEXANDRIA, S.D. -The Oak Lane Hutterite Colony celebrated the completion of its new 10,000-head hog operation with an open house Friday evening.
John Wipf, business manager of the colony, said the four buildings will be finishing barns. Hogs raised in a nursery elsewhere on the colony will be moved to the finishing barns to be raised until slaughter, he said. The hogs are all-natural and drug-free. Wipf said the colony has been raising hogs like these for two years in Iowa at various farms with open barns, but wanted to move the operation to the colony, which is south of Alexandria.
"It'll be better to have them here and use our own feed," Wipf said.
Construction on the hog operation began July 9, 2014, but planning began about one year earlier than that.
The hogs raised on the Oak Lane Colony will be sent to butchering plants in Hospers and Sioux Center, Iowa. Wipf said the meat is shipped to both the East and West coasts.
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The open house drew hundreds of people from other Hutterite colonies and from the area wanting to see the new operation.
Wipf said the 10-foot manure pits will provide more than one year of storage and the colony will use the manure to fertilize their crops.
He added the health security is tight within the facility-including scrupulous cleaning of each room in each barn after a batch of hogs is finished. New hogs are brought in through one entrance only after the housing area is completely clean and finished hogs are brought out through another exit to ensure no cross-contamination.
Wipf said the colony hopes to have hogs in the facility by Aug. 25.
