Helping

With the showing component of livestock production, it is easy to get swept away in the competitive atmosphere and the hunger to win. But the true industry leaders are those whose goal is to sell a show barrow or gilt to a 4-H or FFA member, and hope it has some form of positive impact. Andy Forehand and his family’s operation, Newcastle Genetics, has fit this mold since 1995, when the family moved from Texas to Oklahoma and started raising pigs.

By Rachel Dotsonsucceed

FEATURE

DIGILINKVisit the Newcastle Genetics website to learn more

about the operation in Elgin, Oklahoma.

Taylor Fort drives their class winner at the 2014 Summer Type Confrence. A Cut Above purchased the boar for $60,000.

Long before Newcastle Genetics took roots in the red dirt soil of Elgin, Oklahoma, Andy

grew up on a ranch in New Mexico, an area surrounded by cattlemen. However, Andy found enjoyment and passion within the swine industry and showing pigs. Currently, this 125-sow operation has produced winning barrows and well-known crossbred boars such as Su-per Monster and Outta Hand. Newcas-tle Genetics presently has seven boars on hand they use and also sell semen on.

“We are a confinement opera-tion and for the most part we farrow around 15 to 20 sows per month. In August we will have farrowed about 40 sows. We don’t farrow in May and June and use those two months to take a break,” Andy laughs.

If you ask Andy how the operation, functions, he’ll laugh and say his son, Taylor, does all the work, and he just watches. As an operation that farrows 10 months out of the year, it is all hands on deck for the family members. Each member plays an important role with Newcastle Genetics. Andy takes responsibility for the breeding and looks after the sows, while Taylor is in charge of the finishing hogs, nursery as well as maintenance and marketing. The farrowing sector of the operation is maintained by Andy’s wife, Zoe, and their daughter, Emily. Their son, Ory, helps on the family operation and can been seen in the show ring exhibiting pigs from Newcastle Genetics. Ory had the Reserve Champion Duroc Barrow at the 2015 Tulsa State Fair.

As a total confinement operation, structure and skeletal correctness are held to a high standard when gilts are being selected to be part of the breed-ing program at Newcastle Genetics.

“Of course we want to produce hogs that are really well balanced with a lot of eye appeal, it still takes a pretty one to win,” Andy says. “We want to produce a hog that is sound, functional and wor-thy of being exhibited. We want kids to come here and get an animal that is of some value to them, and one they can actually show and be successful.”

Andy believes that over the years they have been able to find the right balance

of maintaining correct skeletal design, while adding enough muscle shape to be competitive in the show ring. He says they aren’t necessarily breeding hogs to have the most wow factor; they breed hogs to make good hogs.

“In the years I have been here help-ing my dad raise pigs, obviously trends are always changing, but to me there are two that never go out of style, which are balance and soundness,” Taylor says. “If you can get hogs that are very sound and proportional in how they are put together, then it makes things pretty easy to have success down the road.”

Once it is time to sell the pigs, Taylor utilizes a variety of platforms to market showpigs or breeding gilts to customers.

“We do a bit of everything. We try to sell off the farm, through online sales, and we hit up some live sales too,” Tay-lor says. “This allows us to get them out in front of a different audience or group of people and build relationships.”

If there are any challenges Taylor faces with his responsibility of market-ing, it is making sure they have the right type of pigs available at the right time for certain customers to purchase.

“We have different groups of hogs targeting different shows. When we try to sell hogs for early spring, or ones that were born in December or Janu-ary, we don’t have a very big market for those down here,” Taylor says. “So most of those pigs that time of year we have to picture and sell in online sales, and try to establish contacts with people 15 hours away from us.”

Currently, Taylor is working on selling Newcastle’s fall pig crop, which will mainly go to Texas and Oklahoma.

“It’s a challenge, I guess, to be able to sell pigs across the coun-try but it allows you to have more contacts that way,” Taylor says.

As Taylor concentrates on overcom-ing barriers such as distance when building strong clientele relation-ships, Andy finds challenges in hiring help to assist on the operation.

“For the most part, our family is con-fined to the farm all the time. It is very difficult to find people to help anymore, especially down here where this is more cattle and farming area,” Andy says.

With a family-run operation, Andy hopes his kids learn good work ethic through the challenges that can be faced when raising livestock, whether it’s staying productive during the Okla-homa summer months when tempera-tures reach more than 100 degrees or working through times of difficulty.

“You can get a battle of PRRS or disease that goes through your herd; it’s difficult on the hogs, difficult on the people and difficult financially. You have to be able to overcome it and work through it,” Andy says. “I always tell my kids if you continue to work hard and overcome adversity you will always have a place, there will be something for you to do.”

But, the positive times outweigh the negatives for Andy and his family, and Andy’s favorite part of running Newcastle Genetics is his time spent on the operation with his wife and kids.

“This is where Taylor and I differ. I love the days of working on the farm. I enjoy breeding the sows and the genetics side of it,” Andy says. “I went to gradu-ate school and actually studied beef cat-tle breeding genetics. I enjoy breeding livestock period, no matter what kind it is. The effort it takes to try to make them better and improve your own herd to make progress is the part I enjoy.”

Taylor enjoys the networking side of being involved in the show industry and building relation-ships with people and customers.

“Being able to see these pigs at eight or nine weeks old, then to see the transformation of those pigs and to see how those kids work with those hogs are the things I always look back on,” Taylor says.

One thing this father and son do agree on is the person who has had a big influence on them in the industry, Jerry McLemore. McLemore is someone Andy noticed always produce hogs that bred on, in which Andy made sure to emulate into his own breeding program.

“I would have to agree with my dad quite a bit. I guess one of the things I have learned from Jerry, and a lot of people would agree with me on this, Jerry doesn’t sugar coat anything,” Taylor says. “He will tell you exactly what he thinks about your hogs, or his hogs. He isn’t trying to offend you;

he is just very honest in his opinion. If you are trying to make your hogs better, you need that honesty.”

As Newcastle Genetics looks toward the future, Andy and Taylor hope to stabilize around their current number of sows, and continue to improve and focus more on their purebred sows. While Andy dedicates his time to the operation, he also buys and sells stocker and feeder cattle, which keeps him busy, at times. He has handed the operation reigns over to Taylor, who recently graduated from Texas Tech University. Andy continues to sup-port his son, Taylor as he carries on the integrity of Newcastle Genetics.

“The reason we are in business and the business we are in is because we have customers. We try to produce a product that will be successful for our customers, whether it’s with breeding animals or show animals,” Andy says. “We want them to have success.”

“Being able to see these pigs at eight or nine weeks old, then to see the transformation of those pigs and to see how those kids work with those hogs are the things I always look back on.” — Taylor Fort

Ory Forehand carries on the

Forehand passion for the livestock

industry and 4-H.

Atomic was raised by Newcastle Genetics and shown at the 2014 Summer Type Confrence. A Cut About purchased the boar for $60,000.

FEATURE