Today was definitely my favorite stop. We went to 4K farms in Red Oaks, IA where we got to personally meet Hillbilly Bone himself. This is one of the most famous boars around and it was absolutely incredible to meet him and get to see him personally and see some of his offspring as well. This is definitely somewhere I am going to look into going back and doing an internship-I think it would be an amazing experience and I would learn so much. At this stop we got to watch Kirk (the owner) take a semen sample from Hilton (one of the boars-Hillbilly Bone’s son) which was amazing and he took it back to his lab and let us watch it. When he takes a sample he needs to put extender in the semen for a more viable birth and adds a lot of added nutrients and keeps the sperm alive. We then went over to where there was a gilt in heat and we got to watch him artificially inseminate her! Once the gilt/sow shows signs of standing heat they wait about 12 hours before they inseminate her. Kirk likes to see his hogs built like a football player with the skeleton of a gymnast-I really thought that was a good way to look at the hogs. His hogs were absolutely giant and had a very flexible body. Kirk is a very firm believer of line breeding so that he knows he is capturing the most elite genetics, he likes to breed a lot through chromosome X because it captures quality traits and keeps it in line and consistent. We also got to see a lot of their equipment because Kirk’s brother Kent runs an operation with a lot of corn and soybeans.
After 4K farms we left for Omaha, Nebraska.
We got to the Omaha zoo which was absolutely incredible!! I am so beyond blessed to have been able to go on a trip like this with such great people!! I can’t wait for the next one!
