Q&A with
Jim Petrik Q: How long have you been raising pigs? A: We purchased our first Berkshire hogs when I was 13 years old. We had TGE at my parent’s farm that winter and my brother and I were just looking for pigs to show for 4H when we stumbled on a pen of Berks at a show pig sale. We were fortunate to meet Gary Getzmeier and some other enthusiastic breeders early on and fortunate enough to find some influential genetics not too long after. We switched our operation to three-site production in 1995 and at that time we decided to specialize in commercial gilt production, at that time we sold our purebred sows to some other breeders. After a couple of years I missed the Berks and so we started looking for a prolific female line like we had with our old Bobbi sow family. We purchased a gilt here and there and finally got a really great pig producer from John Broek at the Iowa State Fairthis was the start of our Lilly sow family. About the same time, we were able to rent another small hog site and had a spot to park some purebred sows again, so Berks have been a part of our family for most of the last 40 years. Jim and Sharon Petrik
Q: How many sows do you currently have? Where do you supply your pigs to?
Jim Petrik and his wife Sharon own and operate Petrik Farms, located in Gayville, South Dakota. Stay up to date with what’s going on at the Petrik Farm by following them on Facebook!
A: We keep about 25 Berk sows at the south farm as well as some Durocs and crosses. We have a diverse clientele for our purebred hogs. We keep as many as 10 herd sires at Powerpoint Boar Stud and supply semen to some large producers of Berk sired market hogs, we sell Berk and Duroc boars and gilts to meat quality-focused producers and we sell 200+ 4H show projects each spring. Our customers’ needs are diverse so we work hard to
12 \ Experience Berkshire
