Economic and Marketing Information                                                                                                                                                                                      FOR INDIANA  FARMERS
Prepared by the Agricultural Staff of Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana
January 30,   1959
INDIANA   FARMERS
Farm to Market Hog Shrinkage
by THOMAS  T. STOUT and  CLIFTON  B.  COX,  Agricultural  Economics;  JAMES  R.  WILEY,  Animal  Science
This study was conducted under
Purdue University, Department of Agricultural Economics Project Number
133- The work was jointly financed
by Purdue University and the Chicago
Union Stockyards. Appreciation is expressed to farmers, truckers, the Chicago Union Stockyards, and the Indianapolis Stockyards, whose cooperation made this study possible.
James J. Naive, formerly of the
Department of Agricultural Economics, also assisted on the study during
the early stages.
A RECENT PURDUE study
reveals that distance to market and time in-transit are among
the principal factors having important bearing upon shrinkage.
The study involved nearly 10,000
barrows and gilts. The most rapid
rate of shrinkage occurs early in
the haul and gradually slackens as
distance increases; it does not increase in proportion with distance.
Miles to Market
This means that if you patronize a market 25 miles away and
might wish to change to one 50
miles away, shrinkage will not be
twice as much for the more distant market.
Shrinkage always occurs in
livestock transportation. Thus we
often get the question: "Is shrink
really a waste?" Some shrink will
always occur, but that which occurs through lack of control and
precaution is a waste and a cost.
Hogs may shrink, over the same
time or distance, from less than Vi
°f one percent to more than four
Percent between farm and market.
ated with many factors, and according to the study, you can control some of them.
Data were collected on nearly
300 loads of hogs over a 17-month
period from October, 1956 to February, 1958. Truckers hauling
livestock in Indiana cooperated
with Purdue and provided information relating to loads of hogs
hauled to market from farms in
the 26 northwestern counties.
Trucks were weighed empty at
scales near the farm, driven to the
farm, loaded, and returned to the
scales and weighed with allowances for the gasoline used in
moving the truck to the farm and
back to the scales. Each trucker
provided information on each load
relating to weights before and after loading, name of shipper and
market, distance and time to market, weather conditions, and
weight of the hogs upon arrival at
the market.
In order to permit comparison,
when the hogs were hauled to
terminal markets, an arrival
weight was taken which would
correspond to the sale weight at
a local market.
The shipper of each load was
interviewed regarding the practices he followed in feeding the
hogs immediately prior to shipment.
Shrink showed a relationship
with time in-transit that was similar to the relationship with distance.
is variation in shrink is associ-
But transit time is a more reliable indicator of shrinkage than
miles because (1) all trucks don't
travel at the same speed, particu
larly as traffic conditions vary,
and (2) delays and waiting between loading and unloading are
included. It is not really the distance that counts; it is the total
time that hogs must remain in the
truck where they are exposed to a
strange environment and are off
feed and water. But the really important feature about time or distance is that, as they increase,
other factors affecting shrink have
more and more time to exert their
influence also.
Overloading or underloading
has a bearing on the amount of
shrinkage. Livestock Conservation Incorporated, Union Stock
Yards, Chicago, provides capacity
specifications, by type and weight
of livestock, for railroad cars and
trucks of all sizes. The necessity
to underload may be eliminated
by using partitions, and overloading can prove to be an expensive
way to save on trucking charges.
Shrinkage may be minimized by
loading at 95 to 105 percent recommended capacities, while loading at 75 percent of capacity or
less and overloading to say, 115 to
125 percent may increase minimum shrink by more than 15 percent. That would mean that if
your hogs would shrink 2.0 percent when loaded to truck capacity, you might expect a shrink
more like 2.3 percent if you loaded them at more or less than truck
capacity. As one might suspect,
shrinkage may increase rapidly on
short hauls because less precautions such as these are taken just
because the time or distance is
short.
Extremes in temperature and
humidity have an undesirable effect on shrinkage, particularly on
hauls lasting an hour or more.
Shrinkage may be minimized by
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