The Finishing House
The hog finishing house is the newest building on Butternut Ridge Farm and has a capacity of approximately 350-400 hogs, depending on the size of the animals and where they are in the farrow-to-finish cycle. Many Hampshire, Yorkshire, and Chester White hogs have gone through this building on their way from weanling to market. The west end of the finishing house, which is 30’ x 48’, was built in 1981 and can hold up to 180 market weight hogs. The newer east end, which is 30’ x 40’, was built in 1990 and can hold up to 130 market weight hogs.
This building features automatic window shutters along the entire south side and manual shutters on the north side, along with an automatic feeding system fed by 2 Pax bins, located on the east end. Some of the pens in the west end are heated, which is essential for keeping newly weaned hogs alive. Manure from the hogs drops through slats in the floor to a manure holding pit below, which must be periodically pumped out. The manure pit under the west end is 8 feet deep. During construction of the east end, the excavators discovered a huge granite rock that they could not move. Due to this huge rock, the manure pit is only 6 feet deep under this part of the finishing house.
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