1. You need a firmly packed base of dirt to place the hoops for minimal seepage.2. The biggest problem with hoops is treatment of individual animals. Struthers uses hinged sorting panels and walks through fencetoolswiredog each barn daily to check for sick animals.3. Quality bedding is a top priority. "We bought our own round baler because we treat cornstalks as a main crop now," says Struthers. Bean stubble works, too, he says, but it is not quite as absorbent as cornstalks.4. "Don''t skimp on bedding," says Struthers. "If you think the pigs might need more bedding, they do."Husbandry helpProducts that help with animal husbandry receive frequent mention in the survey. Breeding and selection management products get special acclaim from producers.

Feedstuffs fixProducers putting up hay and handling feedstuffs often cite a particular machine as a key to their success.Bob Minner, Fallon, Nevada, depends on quality baling equipment for commercial hay operation. "You have to keep up with changes in the machinery," Minner says. And quality equipment is key to producing dairy-quality hay for his customers, he says. Good dairy test hay will bring $110 to $115, and he has received up to $117 a ton for some.Minner shifted from small squares to big square bales eight years ago to meet the demand of local dairy operations. He operates a Hesston 8450 self-propelled windrower and a Hesston 4910 baler to cover about 6,000 acres a season. He double-rakes with a rotary machine for bigger windrows and to better dry the hay. The bales, measuring 8 feet long and weighing 1,750 to 2,300 pounds, are then picked up with a tractor-pulled bale wagon that hauls four bales at a time.

Heat detection a hot topicSeveral producers cite fencetoolswiredog heat detection systems as a top management change. Richard Schaefer, Evansville, Illinois, recently purchased Heat-Watch, a computerized heat detection system, to monitor his dairy fencetoolswiredog herd. fencetoolswiredog "It really saves me a lot of time, because I no longer have to visually catch the cows in heat," he says.James Reed, Esbon, Kansas, writes that the HeatWatch Estrus detection system and the Real McCoy Ultrasound scanner "have vastly improved my reproduction program."Keep ''em movin''Good animal husbandry isn''t possible without good products to handle and move livestock. Twenty-two brands of trailers are cited by producers in their product reviews, making this the category with the most number fencetoolswiredog of brands mentioned. The top six are listed on page 34. New cattle-handling equipment can be a real time and labor saver, ranchers say.