Richard Fitzsimmons did some serious thinking before he and his brothers, Paul, Pat, John and Bill, took the plunge to incorporate FAST™ (Farmweld Automatic Sorting Technology) in their finishing operations. After visiting a sorting facility last spring, Richard could immediately see how automatic sorting technology would help the brothers’ company, Protein Sources Milling, do a better job hitting target sell weights.

According to Richard, the Fitzsimmons’ packer’s ideal pig is 273 lbs. “I can go six pounds either way but if I go much over that, I get docked. And if I go under that, I don’t sell as the pounds of pork in a year that I want to,” says Richard.

But before the brothers ordered a scale, Richard says he “wanted to think about it a little deeper” than just using the scale as a sorting system. What ultimately convinced him to try FAST was its ability to add flexibility to the Mapleton, MN, operation’s nutrition program. The FAST scale will allow the Fitzsimmons to monitor pig weights throughout the growing period. By accurately knowing how a group of pigs is growing, Richard says he plans to adjust rations according to real growth versus relying on feed budgets based on projected growth. “If I could get actual growth on these pigs, I might able to fine-tune our feeding program,” Richard explains.

The FAST system will also allow the Fitzsimmons to better manage the use of Paylean®, according to Richard. He says he plans to segregate heavy pigs from lighter pigs about two weeks before he begins selling the first group of 180 pigs. The lighter pigs will then be fed diets with Paylean to speed growth for the remainder of the feeding period. The heavy pigs will not be fed Paylean, which Fitzsimmons says costs about $1.60 per head for 21 days. “Those pigs don’t need Paylean because they aren’t holding up the barn,” he says.

The Fitzsimmons brothers are in the process of installing a FAST scale in one of the 50, 600-head finishing barns within their system. They have plans to install four more scales at another site soon, and they hope to interface it with other automation technologies in the future. “I now see it more as a management tool than just a (device) for sorting,” concludes Richard.