Rob Rahe selected 'Pork All American"
Rob Rahe of Marion has a passion for good management and constant improvement.
As manager of several swine operations during the past 10 years, he built a record and reputation in the industry that resulted in his designation last fall as Kansas Pork All-American by the Kansas Pork Association.
He was featured in the February issue of Kansas Farmer.
He currently is operations manager at Paulette's Pork LLC located four miles east of Herington. It is owned by Glenna Rindt of Herington.
"I enjoy my work very much, seeing the end result," Rahe said. "I enjoy focusing in on things, to see how they are done and improving them."
A native of Belleville, Rahe received a degree in animal science from Fort Hays State University in 1991.
He was hired to manage a 600-sow operation at Goodland. It had changed hands numerous times and wasn't doing well. His challenge was to change that.
Through better feeding management and use of good breeding techniques, he increased production and was able to cut the mortality rate in half.
In just two years, Rahe's management improved production from an average of 16 pigs to 22 pigs per sow per year. His efforts doubled the worth of the facility.
In 1995, Rahe moved to Hillsboro, and worked for three and one-half years as swine specialist for Cooperative Grain and Supply.
When he accepted the job at Herington in 1998, he had the opportunity literally to manage the operation from the ground up. Working with architects, Rahe designed the wean-to-finish operation and supervised construction of the facility.
It consists of two nursery barns and eight finishing barns with a total capacity of 10,000 head.
Sixteen-day-old pigs are delivered from a sow farm in Oklahoma, kept in the nursery barns for seven weeks, then transferred to finishing barns. It takes about 19 weeks to bring the pigs to a market weight of 270 pounds.
Almost half of the gilts (females) are returned to the Oklahoma farm. The rest of the pigs are shipped to a packing plant at Sioux City, Iowa.
Rahe said feed conversion is a continuous focus. "The bottom line shows how good a job you did," he said.Last year, he submitted his records to a performance analysis company which placed him in the top 10 percent of managers in the pork industry.
The farm employs three others in addition to Rahe. They follow strict rules to avoid disease problems. Each worker showers upon arriving and showers again when leaving. Individual boots are provided at each barn. Workers shower when going from the finishing barns to the nursery.Ventilation is monitored, pens are walked daily, and bacteria are added to manure pits to keep ammonia level down.
"We follow proven advice from experts," Rahe said. "We'll implement strategies and do them every day, not just for a few weeks."
Rahe and his wife, Katie, live in Marion where she teaches kindergarten. They have three children: Shayla, 9; Justin, 7; and Jarred, 1.
Thanks to Rahe's being named Pork All-American, the family is planning an all-expense paid trip in June to the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa.
