From June 30, 1998, to February 21, 2001, a study to compare swine production facility types was conducted at the Iowa State University Rhodes Research and Demonstration. The two types of pork grow-finish production facilities compared in this study were hoop and total confinement. This report summarizes results from six groups of hogs; three groups fed in during the winter and three groups fed during the summer.

The trial showed some large differences between the seasons. The hoop facilities showed an advantage of $1.43 per hog net income over the confinement facility during the summer (Table 2), whereas the confinement facility showed a $6.93 per hog net income advantage during the winter (Table 4). The result is a year round advantage of $2.75 per hog for the confinement hogs (Table 6). The difference is a function of overall production and marketing advantages that the confinement showed during the trial. The production differences were large enough that the confinement facility offset the higher initial investment through lower variable costs. The confinement facility also had a significant advantage in marketing with almost a full percent advantage in yield and a lean premium of $.24 per hundred weight over the hoop facilities. The trial also suggested that the hoop facilities had more variability. This may be due to their increased susceptibility to environmental conditions.