One of the most influential figures in the hog industry lives just on the outskirts of Utica, on a farm known as Shipley Swine Genetics.
Randy Shipley, a lifelong Licking County resident, chose to pursue his dream to farm in 1968, and now he is well-known for his vast knowledge and great deal of experience.
The farm prides itself on the idea of farmers serving farmers, which Shipley most certainly does.
“We do just about anything that has to do with hogs,” Shipley told the Mount Vernon News. “We breed, collect genetics, breed about one-hundred and fifty sows [female pigs that have previously had a litter], and we sell a lot of bred gilts [female pigs that have not yet had a litter]. We’re replenishing herds across the United States.”
In 2022, sales of hogs in the United States amounted to over $34 billion, and in Ohio, just under $1 billion in 2023. The Ohio pork industry supported $1.46 billion of gross national product in that same year.
In Knox County, hogs and pigs are big business, second only to poultry and eggs in the livestock category according to the USDA’s most recent county profile released in 2017.
That year, Knox County hog farmers saw just shy of $17 million in sales and holdings of more than 34,400 hogs. At the time, Knox County had ranked 20th in the state in hog and pig production and 297th among counties nationwide.
Shipley has been working with hogs since his freshman year of high school, although his farm work hasn’t always been with pigs.
“We had about fifteen or eighteen milk cows … My job was to carry five-gallon buckets of milk and put it in the cooler, along with some other things, but that was my main job,” he said.
The first pigs that Shipley and his father, Sidney Shipley, purchased were for an FFA project. He and his dad started a partnership, each having bought one gilt. However, these first two pigs are not what started the farm.
Both of the gilts gave birth on the first of January that year, and both litters were lost.
Shipley says the second time around they took more care in paying attention, which prompted much better results and eventually led to the large success of the farm.
Shipley’s well-known standing and expertise is, as he says, from the “school of hard knocks.”
His time in the industry has led him to encounter many other people, whether it be other experienced farmers or customers seeking hog-related advice, and he says that this is his favorite part of being so well known.
“I enjoy talking to so many people every day, and solving some of their problems,” Shipley said. “All of a sudden, some of these people want to put you on a pedestal and they think you’re really smart. What they don’t realize is that your education is from lots of mistakes.”
Throughout Shipley’s years in the hog industry, the qualities of a good hog have changed considerably. In the beginning of his time as a hog farmer, skinny was in when it came to hogs, but now the ideal pig is one that tastes good.
“You would get them super, super lean, so we were importing from Canada and Sweden, so we would have some of the very leanest,” Shipley said. “But at that time, you could get paid extra money as a commercial man, if they were lean, you would get extra dollars. Well now, today it is about exactly the opposite. Everything is about meat quality and taste, it always evolves.”
Shipley’s continuing influence in the hog industry is something that cannot be replicated and his time in the industry is not close to over.
Editor's note: Randy Shipley is Mount Vernon News intern Jacey Snyder's grandfather.
