It's time for a new era of communication the swine industry one that you can get the latest updates while Community or driving to Farms here. You have the brightest mind of the global swine industry in your pocket. Everyone wants to hire more people, but it's actually the back door. That's the problem because people are leaving about as fast as you're hiring them and if you can ever get the back door fixed. The front door is not near as big of an issue. Swine it podcast is only possible with the sport of forward-looking and Innovative companies, like just all always one step ahead and slide fitting every Pig a simple yet powerful big health and production management to not request experts serving producers and delivering breakthrough Solutions Zoom Pro essential trace minerals, exceptional performance and Genesis the first Power in genetics. Well, Come to swine it podcast. My name is Marcelo Salvage your host for today's episode this episode. Sponsor. Highlight is about every Pig the truth is precision swine production is not the future. It's the present every pig is the intelligent Pig Health platform. It is a simple yet powerful Pig health and production management tool request a free 20 minutes demonstration at the Ewwww dot every Pig dot C. Oh, hello everyone today. We are hosting dr. Larry Coleman and we'll get his thoughts on pigs and people. How are you? Dr. Coleman? I'm doing great. Thanks for calling. Thank you for your time and let's get right into it. Dr. Coleman. How did you get involved a pig production and walk us through Through your career so far. Yep. So I graduated from Veterinary College in 1980 long time ago and I was going to do cattle the rest of my life Cal Kev and I move back to my home area which is a cattle area and a strange set of circumstances. But six years later, I found myself enjoying doing the small amount of swine work that I did and ended up going to North Carolina to do swine residency at Raleigh North Carolina State University birthplace and the birth time of the modern swine Evolution that occurred in America that I saw what was happening there and I decided to hurry back home and start a swine career because I wanted to participate in that and I was very interested in seeing In that that industry that I saw developing I wanted that to happen in my home area. So that's how I ended up back in Nebraska. That's very cool. Awesome. So let's start dr. Coleman with your thoughts about pigs and then we move to your thoughts about people so about pigs what have been your biggest lessons on Pig production in general so far. Yeah great question. You know initially back in the 80s or early 90s people thought they could build these very big hurts and isalean production was going to solve all of our health concerns. And so I guess one thing that I've learned is that disease pathogens always seem to stay one step ahead of us and as a veterinarian We thought my pre naively back in the nineties that disease was going to be eliminated and it's interesting that 40 years later. That's still one of our biggest challenge facing our industry. I guess the other thing I learned if I could have another thing that I've learned was the in the difficulty of putting a team together on a farm and having a fun. Chin, as a as a world-class team very difficult. I think the sports analogy works very well, you know, you can hire all the right people but at the end of the day some teams perform very well and some don't so that would be the two things that I learned disease is always right there facing us and the people is one of the bigger issues in our industry very Testing, I love that. So in you work with some very healthy Hearts, I'm sure you have some hearts that that have some out to make sometimes but I know he works with some very healthy Hearts as well. What is the key for Great Pig Health? Yeah, that's a great question. I give total credit to the ownership for creating a culture of Health. The I'm blessed because geographically my area is somewhat low Pig density. So if owners are committed to healthy herds, this is an area that you can achieve it but I will say that even if you put a hurt on the moon unless you have commitment to biosecurity Etc. You will lose that and I am blessed with two owners in particular that are very committed to biosecurity and they're willing to spend the money to create a culture that's conducive to that. They they not only verbalize that health is important. They open their checkbooks and make sure that the pieces are in place to ensure that Health continued. Very nice, maybe a follow-up question on health Larry from a more tactical standpoint. What do you see today? Might be the biggest opportunity for for the fur farms in General on the health side. Yeah. That's a great question. You know, I've been kind of on the outside of filtration that has been very intriguing to me. And it looks like that has been highly successful. We incorporated that technology and it's allowed pigs to be raised successfully in areas where where it was thought at one time that maybe the female hurt or the sow herds would have to be abandoned. So that is a great interest but you know production systems aren't becoming their own. Worst Enemy by creating too much density in a location and that they're spending the money to make sure that they're not bringing disease home to their to their fault. That's very very good. Now, let's transition to two people. Dr. Coleman the culture in some of the production systems. You work with are very unique. What are key? X to create a powerful culture. Yeah, that's a great question. And I've been somewhat convinced over the last 10 20 years. The ownership is the one that sets the culture and I believe the primary way they do that is they are the ones that are responsible for hiring the people underneath them and these people either be care. People and when I talk about caring I'm talking about caring about people or they can be non caring people that really don't care about people. They just want to get things done. And then that those people they have they're responsible for hiring people. So I think this this idea of how important people is starts at the top and then gradually Works down. Through supervisors managers and then at the pig pig level and I think I've been come convinced that people on farms. They have a sense whether the ownership the management actually cares about them or whether it's just about dollars at the end of the day while yeah, I never thought about that two categories people that care about people and people that don't care so much. I love that. What is one tactic that our listeners could Implement today to improve the culture in their Farms? Well, there's lots of things and so I'm not necessarily saying that this is the most important thing but I think if people at the farm saw upper management on their Farms, that would be powerful and not only saw Saw those people but the people that are on the farms felt listened to and so if if upper management would come to the farms and listen to the people and not necessarily criticize them. But just listen to their problems and some of their problems are fixable and some of them are on but I think people that are working with pigs. They need to have their concerns heard and they need to feel like They're being listened to that makes total sense. It reminds me from a book forgot which book was it? But you know, you go to a barbecue and you don't talk much you just listen at the end of the barbecue. Whoever talks into thinks you're great, but you didn't say anything that is quite the the nature of human beings. Yeah, but then like you said, you know, listening and fixing what you can fix two. Yes, but part of that is being willing to ask questions rather than just lecturing people so that a good listener I think is also good at asking questions and getting to the bottom of how the people are feeling. Yes, and I definitely noticed in my interactions with you that you are great at that. Did you have any general tips for us? Yeah, you know General tips. I've kind of built a career around asking questions. That's how I teach that's how I learn. I think I was born with curiosity which helps but if anything that you can do to drive curiosity I think is a great thing because I think curiosity drives the desire to ask questions and And I'm not sure if I have a flow chart on how to develop your curiosity, but that's a skill that definitely needs developed. Very interesting. Love it anything else about big production big health or people before we move to the three questions. We ask every guest. Yeah on the questions, right? Not really, you know, I think the difficulties facing the in Street, you know, I probably didn't allude to this enough but getting Farm staff. That's just a fight everywhere you go. If you can be a producer that is able to achieve Staffing and keep Staffing there because everyone wants to hire more people but it's actually the back door. That's the problem because people are leaving about as fast as you're hiring them and if you can ever get the back door, Fixed the front doors not near as big of an issue and it's not easy. But that is the where we need to focus what would be a realistic while aggressive turnover rate to to aim for you know, I think if you could get around 20 percent yearly that would be ideal. That's very manageable. When you get up over 50% it becomes very unmanageable. And then you're just kind of in a capping create short staffing. And so if you're short staff, the number one thing you need to fix is short staffing. I know that's a play on words, but nobody likes to be at a workplace where there's not enough people to do the work right and then you got into that pyro death. Well, we're very good little class the liver started breakthrough solutions to animal producers via nutritional and no nutritional products services and Technologies and Newt request. We believe in Ingenuity inspired by servitude and that our success comes from helping producers realize improved profitability through optimized technologists and efficient operation. It is time to our famous. All right, so the three questions, dr. Coleman we ask every guest every episode. The first one is what's your favorite swine related book? That's a great question. I guess I've become a millennial over the last ten years, whatever that means that I used to read a lot of books but interestingly over the last Five years. I've discovered YouTube and podcast. I'm having a fist like everyone else about a 10-minute attention span and I love podcasts. I love YouTube stuff and I love anything that's short and that I can listen to when I'm traveling. So as a category that is kind of become my favorite go-to way to access information. Very nice. Yeah, tell you that I've been doing a lot of audio books as well instead of yeah, because you can multitask that way and and then the YouTube videos you can filter less than four minutes and you look and then I look at the ratio of likes to dislikes in that alone already tell you if the video is good or not. Yeah. Absolutely. I love you, too. Bye. I know there's other stuff but I watch stuff on there all the time. It's become a big time waster for me. So well, yeah, and you can like if you want to listen to interviews or whatever. It's yeah. Love it. Very cool. Um, how about I guess I don't know if we already answered the second question, but any book or unrelated to swine or anything could be a book could be a movie could be a documentary that is unrelated to swine. You know, I guess the only thing I I'd say is that I'm a history student and I love history sometimes even in the swine industry. I don't think people understand how we got to where we were at. So maybe I'm not answering your question. But when I want to listen or read other material, it's always history because I think whether it was a Some years ago or yesterday, we're still facing the same problems with people and Logistics and things like that. So history as a category would be my favorite book. So love it. Very nice Alright, and then the last question is what separates successful swine professionals from those that are not. Yeah great question. I can answer for myself. I and I hate to call myself successful because sometimes I don't feel that way but I'm where I'm where I'm at today because 30 40 years ago. I was willing to make a commitment to get some some learning in a different area. And I've kind of been in an area that does not have a lot of pigs and I've always felt like it's been hard for me to procure. And because I haven't had 20 swine bets in offices next to me, but I guess my skill that has made helped me a lot is my ability to ask questions. But also be aware of who is out there that is being successful and I always say I don't want to invent anything. I just want to be a copier and so I think I try to copy success whenever I see it and I try to figure out why they're successful and then try to copy it. So once again curiosity and asking questions is my go-to strength, I guess don't worry vendor will yes. Yeah, very powerful a really really appreciate your time. I always loved how you can be very objective and The in your answers. Dr. Coleman. Thanks so much. Well, thank you for yes a great talking to you. So.
Today’s episode will cover Thoughts on Pigs and People. “Everyone wants to hire more people but it is actually the backdoor that is the problem because people are leaving about as fast as you can hire them. If  you can ever get the backdoor fixed, the front door is not a big of an issue.” – Dr. Larry Coleman. Our guest is Dr. Larry Coleman, another bright mind of the Global Swine Industry. Dr. Coleman obtained his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Missouri in 1980. Following graduation, he accepted a position at a mixed food-animal practice in Broken Bow, Nebraska. In 1986, Coleman left Broken Bow to spend a year at the North Carolina State University working with swine integrators in that state. He returned to Broken Bow in 1987 and opened his own food-animal practice, where he remains to this day. Coleman's personal veterinary medicine passion is the "art and science" of getting employees to emotionally engage when they are taking care of animals. Coleman joined AASV in 1984 and has served on various AASV committees since that time. What you will learn:   How he got involved in pig production and the development of his career;  His biggest lessons on pig production;   The key to great pig health;   Key aspects to create a powerful culture in the production system;   Tactics that could be implemented today to improve the culture in farms;   What separates successful swine professionals from those that are not. Larry’s favorite swine-related resource: YouTube and podcasts  Larry’s favorite resource unrelated to swine: history books Edited by Lauro Faccin 