By ETHAN MAY
For the Republic-Times

Every day, Bruce Brinkman spends about two hours walking around his farm outside of old Valmeyer checking on and feeding his hogs.

In August 2013, the Brinkman family held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for their new state-of-the-art, 20,000-square-foot structure capable of raising 2,400 hogs.

The Brinkmans already had an older 800-hog structure, but this new high-tech structure meant there would be some new things to learn.

“Never stop learning,” Brinkman said with a soft smile.

He repeatedly discussed efficiency when talking to the Republic-Times; his new building was built with just that in mind. The climate is controlled by a tunnel ventilation system that can circulate air through the long building in as little as 30 seconds. When temperatures rise above 85 degrees outside, a mist system is automatically triggered to cool the animals.

The rectangular building is built high above ground with two long hallways surrounded by pens. Each pen has its own feeding and watering system to ensure the hogs have maximum comfort and health.

In the four months it takes for the hogs to grow to the goal weight of around 275 pounds, the Brinkmans will have four 24-ton loads of feed arrive each week. These shipments are unloaded in large hoppers that are piped into each pen’s feeding system.

When it is time to send a shipment of mature hogs out, Bruce and his son Dustin, who attends SIU-Carbondale for agricultural business, can fill a truck in as little as a half hour.

When the mature hogs are gone, it is time for sanitation and cleaning. The stinky process can take as long as 16 hours — just for one half of the building. All feces falls through the floor, where it lands in a reservoir capable of holding around 400 days of manure.

While it sounds like a stinky business, Bruce says he has yet to hear any complaints from his neighbors.

Speaking of stinky — nearly 850,000 gallons of manure comes from the hogs each year. This spring, Bruce used the manure in about 250 acres of his fields; he can’t wait for harvest when he will be able to see how the added nutrients help his crop production.

When asked to grade his success throughout these first two years, Bruce was hesitant to give a letter. Instead, he said the operation has been excellent as they have made minor modifications as time has gone on. They survived the cold winter of 2013 and were not at all affected by the nation’s swine virus last year.

Built after much brainstorming and with the successes and failures of previous buildings in mind, Bruce is proud of how much success he has had in the new building.

While an expansion could be in the future, the distant future depends on what his children (Dustin, 22; Bethany, 16; and Ryan, 14) decide to do when they leave school.

For now, the Brinkmans will continue to learn as they try to be more and more efficient.