PHOTOS: PRÉJET FARMS
FARM VISIT ▶▶▶
Growing in both size and quality
Only a few years into having their own pig farm, the Préjets of Manitoba, Canada made the decision to “go big” with their future in the industry. After 25 years, the choice has proven a good one. Most recently, upgrades included a switch to liquid feeding preceded by a conversion to group housing in gestation.
BY TREENA HEIN, CORRESPONDENT I PROFILE
Owners: Rick and Roseline Préjet, and oldest son Jean (Johnny) Préjet. The picture shows Rick (left) and Jean. Location: Notre Dame de Lourdes and surrounding area, MB, Canada. Operation: The Préjets are part owners (and Johnny is general manager) at Porcherie Lac du Onze (PLDO), Porcherie La Mon- tagne (PLM) and Porcherie Notre Dame (PND). There are more than 40 employees.
n Canada, the world’s third-largest pork exporter, there are many types of pig farms. At first, the Préjets of Mani- toba had a simple farm – large, in fact, for the time – but made the decision to go much larger. And it has paid off
handsomely. Over the last 25 years, they’ve invested with others at a steady pace to become fully integrated, and have also
adapted to new circumstances by installing group sow housing and taking advantage of by-products from food processing plants to save on feed costs.
Farm origins The story begins with Rick Préjet (currently chair of the Mani- toba Pork Council) back in 1989. After working for seven years in the feed industry, he returned to his home community of Notre Dame with his new wife Roseline (a nurse). That year, they built their own 150-sow farrow-to-feeder barn and had their first son, Jean (Johnny). “There were lots of smaller oper- ations at the time,” says Préjet. “Our size was quite big for this area. We borrowed two-thirds of the cost. The first year, the prices were very good and things went well. We expanded to 200 sows and dropped the weaning age, as that was the trend at the time.” However, market prices then started to drop. In addition, there were no nursing jobs for Roseline. By the time their second child, Nathalie, was born in 1990, Préjet says “the farm had difficulty supporting itself and the family”. In 1993 (when another son, Christian, was born), Rick con- sidered taking a position managing a large sow operation in southeast Manitoba, one of the first of the larger farms that would become much more common in Western Canada. However, instead of moving away and doing this, Rick and Roseline made a big decision. With a group of local farmers, friends and family, they proceeded to create Porcherie Lac du Onze (PLDO), a 1,250-sow farrow-to-feeder operation. In 1995, their last child, Matthieu, was born. By 1998, as part of disease control strategies, PLDO went to a three-site model by expanding and converting the sow barn to a 3,000-sow farrow-to-wean operation. The PLDO team also built a four-barn 10,400-head offsite nursery a few kilo- metres away. “That year, Roseline and I also joined another investor group and built a two-barn 4,200-head finisher farm under the name of Porcherie La Montagne (PLM),” says Préjet, “which purchased feeder pigs from PLDO.” In 2001, the PLDO leaders built a 150-head offsite quaran- tine barn to help acclimatise incoming breeding stock. The year after, they formed a separate company called Porcherie Notre Dame (PND) to build a 6,300-head finisher site (PND purchased feeder pigs from the PLDO flow). PND also started transporting market hogs for themselves and PLM, and built an onsite vehicle wash bay.
36 ▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 38, No. 3, 2022
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