Big pig business expanding throughout North Dakota
NORTH DAKOTA - A 5,000-pig farrowing operation is going up near here – one of four planned in the state by a group called North Dakota Sow Center LLP.
7 February 2007
2 minute read
The $8 million project near Edmore includes a gestation barn roughly the size of two football fields placed end to end, and a farrowing barn that is smaller but still larger than a football field.
Construction is to start this spring on the second facility near Bottineau. Investors have yet to determine where the other two facilities will be built.
North Dakota Sow Centers is raising $12.5 million in startup funds through the sale of 250 shares at $50,000 each.
Craig Jarolimek, of Forest River, a former president of the National Pork Producers Council and current Sow Center partner and consultant, said the campaign is on schedule to be completed by August.
The North Dakota Sow Center aims to raise pigs from birth to 14 pounds, a process that will take about 21 days. The first pigs are to be delivered to a cooperative-owned hog-finishing plant in Remsen, Iowa, around Labor Day.
In full operation, the Edmore plant will have 5,000 sows producing about 125,000 pigs per year.
Source: The Forum
