Nicholls keep farming in the family

The Nicholls family have been farming in the Doodlakine area for 112 years.

"We have been in the locality since 1908," John said.

John and Sandy have been running their piggery for several years prior, but built their first intensive pig shed in 1980.

In addition to their own piggery, the Nicholls also lease John's cousin's piggery.

"The finishing pigs are run out in their two sheds and the weaners are held in our shed where they farrow here and are held here as weaners," John said.

The Nicholls have 2500 hectares of owned and leased land.

Their pig operation consists of 190 sows and is from farrow to finish.

Some of the pigs are grown out to 60-65 kilograms to be sold as porkers and some are grown out to 95kg plus and are sold as baconers.

The Nicholls hope each sow has on averages nine piglets, which are weaned at 19-23 days of age.

The sows gestate for three months, three weeks and three days (115 days) and the herd average is 2.2 litters per year.

Weekly the Nicholls sell 10-15 porkers and 35-40 baconers.

"We do also sell some spit pigs but not many, it's generally just special orders," John said.

The Nicholls have been selling their pigs to David McLheney, Eastern Districts Meat Wholesalers, for more than 35 years.

The weaners and finishers are kept in sheds, while the sows are kept in eco shelters/sheds with straw-based bedding.

"It is a newer way of keeping gestating pigs, so they are group housed together on straw and meets the ever-evolving animal welfare standards," John said.

The sows are artificially inseminated (AI) from PIC and Cefn bloodstock and the Nicholls also keep some of their own boars for AI purposes.

As for culling their herd most of the sows do five to seven parities.

"The pig herd runs on the gilts, so we have been concentrating on our gilts and the better we get the gilts running the more profitable the business is," John said.

When it comes to feeding their pigs the Nicholls grow most of their own grain.

"The mix includes wheat, lupins, barley and triticale and the diets are mixed according to a Bio-John recipe," John said.

The Nicholls are no strangers to biosecurity, having to be very careful not to introduce any diseases into the piggery.

"We don't have mange and we don't have roundworm or swine dysentery, they're three quite debilitating diseases that cost money to fix," John said.

Pigs can be very susceptible to diseases and due to their living environment if one contracts something it is tough to prevent it from spreading to the entire herd.

With the new COVID-19 threat on top of African swine fever, John said in terms of biosecurity it hasn't affected them as they already have strict measures.

"We are actually quite used to it, we practice biosecurity with people coming onto the farm, visiting the piggery and getting new stock and taking pigs to the abattoir each week," John said.

The Nicholls deliver pigs to Linley Valley once if not twice a week for Eastern Districts Meat Wholesalers.

"The person that takes the pigs down to Linley Valley, has a pair of boots specifically for going to the abattoir, so we put the dirty boots on, unload the pigs, wash down the truck and the dirty boots are then stored on the truck and when the driver arrives home then they shower and the clothes are washed," John said.

Generally, after visiting a site where there are other pigs the driver is quarantined for 12-24 hours before going back into the piggery.

As well as biosecurity the pigs receive a series of vaccinations to ensure their health and reduce the risk of infection from diseases.

"We do a standard vaccination for all the sows including eco-vacLE and parvovac and when the gilts arrive they're given circaflex and Mpac and all of the progeny that are born on the farm are given Mpac and circaflex," John said.

Up until 2018 in addition to the piggery the Nicholls ran a flock of 1000-1500 ewes.

The flock was made up of a mix of Prime SAMMs and Merinos before they made the decision to keep only Merinos.

"We decided to concentrate on the Kamballie bloodline Merinos because there wasn't that much difference between prime lambs and Merino lambs in price," John said.

"We used to finish in a feedlot and sell them as lambs to the Tammin abattoir," John said.

But sheep stealing in the area became a problem, so in 2018 the Nicholls decided to focus on expanding their pig enterprise and sell off the sheep.

The pig industry has suffered it's fair share of hard times over the years with the introduction of Swine flu, African swine fever and COVID-19.

"We had quite low prices for two years and it resulted in us backing off a bit with production," John said.

The low prices weren't the only challenge in 2018 and 2019, with the Nicholls along with other producers struggling to place their pigs.

Several factors including changing export markets and better overall pig production produced a glut of pig meat in the national market.

Because of this, the Nicholls donated some of their pigs to the Kellerberrin food bank.

"I refused to euthanise a perfectly healthy animal," John said.

"A lot of pig farmers were faced with the fact that they couldn't place their pigs, especially smaller pig farmers."

Despite these challenges, the Nicholls have 'come out the other side' and have begun rebuilding their herd, as the industry has started to show some positive signs.

Prices for baconers since October 2019 have increased and the African swine fever has meant demand for pork internationally has increased.