The Poultry Leadership Podcast
"Welcome to 'The Poultry Leadership Podcast,' where we dive deep into the world of poultry leadership to help you soar to new heights in your career. Join us as we sit down with some of the industry's most accomplished leaders, farm owners, and allied professionals. Gain valuable insights, strategies, and personal stories that reveal the secrets behind their success. Discover what makes these poultry visionaries the outstanding leaders they are. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, our show is your go-to resource for unlocking your full leadership potential. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey to becoming the poultry leader you aspire to be."
This podcast is brought to you by Prism Controls, the leader in Environmental Controls for the past 45 years! Check them out at http://www.prismcontrols.com
The Poultry Leadership Podcast
Healthy Animals And Efficiency: Why Ventilation Is Your Farm's Unpaid Employee
Eric Rupnow's journey through agriculture—from his roots in Wisconsin to his role at J&D Manufacturing—reveals how ventilation technology transforms livestock operations across species. Driven by a passion for creating optimal environments where animals thrive, Rupnow brings practical solutions to complex airflow challenges in poultry, swine, and dairy facilities.
The conversation dives deep into why ventilation serves as an "unpaid employee" on farms when implemented correctly. Drawing from real-world examples, Rupnow shares the story of a dairy operation that virtually eliminated calf treatments after switching to tunnel ventilation—challenging conventional wisdom about keeping young animals warm at any cost. Similarly, a poultry producer in the Southwest saves approximately $20,000 monthly through strategic fan placement and high-efficiency motors that paid for themselves within six months.
What makes J&D's approach unique is their development of integrated solutions specifically designed for modern challenges like cage-free housing. Their light trap combination systems maintain clean interior walls while optimizing airflow, demonstrating how innovative engineering responds to industry evolution. The company partners with complementary technology providers rather than attempting to master everything, ensuring farmers receive best-in-class complete systems.
Looking toward the future, Rupnow envisions more precise control systems, filtered positive pressure applications to combat airborne diseases, and continued innovation across species. Perhaps most valuable is his advice to challenge traditional approaches—even when you think you have the right answer. This mindset has led to breakthrough solutions for problems farmers didn't know they had.
The discussion highlights the critical importance of involving barn-level staff in equipment shows and innovation processes. These frontline workers often identify problems and solutions that might be missed by management. Their practical experience proves invaluable when developing ventilation systems that truly deliver on-farm results.
Whether you're operating a massive integrated operation or a small specialty farm, understanding how air moves through your facilities could be the difference between struggling and thriving. Reach out to ventilation specialists who can help analyze your specific challenges and develop solutions that improve animal health, worker satisfaction, and ultimately, your bottom line.
Check out J&D Manufacturing - https://jdmfg.com/
Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com
Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Mulnix, and on today's episode I have Eric Rupnow. Eric is going to be speaking with us from J&D Fans today and he is passionate about ventilation. Passionate about ventilation. Eric has been a big fan of the show and we've had lots of good conversations, whether at the different IPPE or Peak or those things. And, man, when I could see his passion for ventilation and the fact that we've also gotten a chance to work together on a couple of projects, I had to share Eric with you guys. So welcome to the show, Eric.
Eric Rupnow:Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's always good to talk like agriculture and if we can dive into the ventilation piece, let's have some fun.
Brandon Mulnix:Absolutely. Eric. Will you share a little bit about who you are with the listeners?
Eric Rupnow:Okay, my name again, eric Rupnow. I grew up north of Wausau, wisconsin, kind of right smack in the center of the state. My dad was a dairy kind of right smack in the center of the state. My dad was a dairy veterinarian and we had grew up with sheep and horses and involved in the 4-H programs real heavy livestock judging, showing livestock, all that stuff you know.
Eric Rupnow:and kind of had that dream as a kid. You know that you're going to end up out west, you know, on some big cattle ranch or feedlot or something like that. So I ended up taking my college time at North Dakota State University and got that degree in animal and range science. And when I was getting ready for graduation I realized, guess what, I don't want to make $15,000 a year and live in a bunkhouse. So, cause, I'm really not a cowboy.
Brandon Mulnix:No future on Yellowstone for you no Yellowstone for me.
Eric Rupnow:So I ended up entering the swine industry and it's 1995 that industry was growing and seeking and finding people to be a part of that integration. They also had it set up that it created some work-life balance for people. A lot of times agriculture doesn't always create work-life balance right. So I had it set up that way, moved myself to Pipestone, minnesota and started that. So I worked in the swine industry for most of my career, whether it be in the sow and boar, stud stuff, weaned to finish, kind of worked my way through all of that and ended up going. I got to find something a little bit different and ended up on the swine nutrition side and that ended up being just a lot of consulting, if that makes sense, where you're just helping people solve problems and if you're there on their lucky day maybe you pick up some business.
Eric Rupnow:Married 27 years, my wife Larissa. We met in Louisville, kentucky, at livestock judging, national livestock judging contest. We raised two boys again the same way that we were raised around showing livestock and those things. We still have a small flock of ewes and sell some sheep to kids for their show projects and stuff like that. Try to help them out. One son ended up becoming a design engineer and the other one he's finishing up his senior year in sports management and played college football. So that was quite the experience for all of us A lot of fun, a lot of fun.
Brandon Mulnix:Where do you play?
Eric Rupnow:football at Carroll University in Waukesha, wisconsin. It's a Division III school playing the CCIW conference. So if anybody who follows Division III football knows that North Central won the Division III National Championship and that's one of their schools from their conference that we had a hard time with just like everybody else. But no, that's a great experience Again, a different experience than I could ever provide a kid growing up because of agriculture. You know he found that again, had passion for it. You know he's currently trying to get himself a graduate assistant program and get his MBA and kind of move through that, but he still credits being a part of agriculture and livestock as a big thing.
Eric Rupnow:You know, today we live in Nemaha, iowa and, as I was telling you earlier, nemaha Iowa is famous for the Farmall Promenade and it was a group of farmers locally that basically half of them dressed like women, half dressed like men. The men were on, I believe they were on H's or M's and women were on C's and they square danced these things and it was actually an amazing thing to see the cool thing. We talk about work ethic a lot in the ag industry or in any industry. Both my sons had the opportunity to work for one of those guys and you know bailing hay on a rack and out in the sun and you know helping tear down this old building or whatever the daily picking rocks, all that stuff. So they got a chance to have that work and create that work ethic and that's kind of the beauty.
Eric Rupnow:I think that's what fuels the passion for agriculture and myself and my wife, because we're you're part of it but we don't own it like the typical person thinks of a farmer. Right? She spent 25 years teaching agriculture education, she's an ffa advisor and now she works for collison embryo where they do uh, basically reproductive technologies and cattle and small ruminants. So that's kind of how we land where we're at. I wish somebody had told me when I was 21 years old what the poultry industry was, because it's a pretty amazing thing. That's a story that really needs to be told to people where that chicken and egg comes from, because there's a lot of opportunity out there for people. I mean it's pretty impressive. Because there's a lot of opportunity out there for people, I mean it's pretty impressive. That's one thing I like going to IPPE just because I see how big that industry is and how much it comes together. I don't think any industry comes together from the processing and production together like they do in the poultry industry. It's impressive.
Brandon Mulnix:It is definitely a different scale than the pork industry. I've been to the world pork congress there in iowa and it's hands down, you know, quite a bit smaller, quite a bit more confined compared to ipp where you've got man, one of the biggest convention halls in the us, full of poultry equipment providers and technicians, plus another room off to the side. Even that's got all the feed agitatives and a room I've never even been in. It's crazy down there.
Eric Rupnow:I made a point last year to go walk through there, and you know then I'm talking to a lot of people that I'd worked with in the past from the swine side of things, you know, and you do see a lot of crossover. You know JD manufacturing. It was started, as some's been in pipes on race cars and decided, hey, we're going to make freestalls for dairy barns. And then Don Radsky, who's the founder owner of the company, was kind of an engineering geek junkie whatever you want to call term you want to use there. He started diving into this ventilation sphere term you want to use there. He started diving into this ventilation sphere and that has been a focus for probably half of the country's 40, whatever 43 years of existence and that's kind of what drew me to it. You know I went to the iowa port congress and was visiting with kirk brinks, who was the vp of sales and marketing, and we're standing next to this fan that was released there and that year at IPPE in 2020.
Brandon Mulnix:Yeah, it had been January of 2020.
Eric Rupnow:And I'm standing there looking at this fan and I'm like he's like what do you think? I said this is the greatest thing ever. So I'm looking at a 58 inch fan. It has no belts and pulleys and nothing to break, or you know, just if everything's working. It should be a maintenance free thing, right? It should be something that put in a wall. It's going to work. The design of it, everything about it. It was a breakdown fan. So you talk about just buying fans. We tell people we're selling you cfm, right?
Eric Rupnow:and we can sell you a 70-inch fan and I get 17 of them on a truck. Or I can sell you this 58-inch fan that does the same CFM and I get 75 of them on a truck. Yeah, you got to put them together, but we're shipping 300 of them to California. Guess what it's going to pay for itself. So kind of that innovative thing is what brought me to J&D.
Eric Rupnow:I always, kind of, through all of that swine, saw so many failures, mistakes in design of barns and then in execution, of how poor ventilation caused more problems in terms of health and disease and just growth and just deficiencies. I mean there's so many things. I mean there's a lot of other things that go into it. But ventilation failures or mishaps or whatever you want to call, they can really ruin a group of hogs, and I think it's the same in anything else. We dive into the dairy too. A lot of people think, oh, dairy calf, keep it warm. Yeah, but warm and wet's not good for lungs, it doesn't matter. So it's in anything. We've got a providing a great environment, 70 degree day, you know, in a nice little tree grove. It's perfect for everybody and every species of livestock too. How do we create that in mass population facilities. And that's the challenge, and that's the opportunity, and that's what kind of keeps me going through this thing.
Brandon Mulnix:Well, J&D, what is a big problem that they've solved in the industry?
Eric Rupnow:In the poultry industry. I think the big problem that was solved was putting together a light trap combination system for a cage-free house that kept everything flush to the inside. There wasn't anything sticking out. And then it was tested. You know, it was tested pulling that air through that light trap and making sure that the static pressure in between the light trap and the fan is where it's supposed to be and then making sure the size matches we're not overworking the motors or overamping the motors and things like that. So that made a big thing.
Eric Rupnow:One thing that I see that JND is doing the past two years and then moving forward is okay, there's so many pieces to putting together a ventilation system, right, you've got, you know, inlets and actuators and all of these different things stir fans and all of that. You can go and try to create your own, say, sidewall in it or tunnel inlet, right, and that's a tough thing to create. So what we've done is gone to more partnering with other companies to say, okay, the TPI inlets, I look at those as the best in the world. I haven't seen or found anything that was better. They're continuing to innovate. They kind of have the same mindset as J&D does in moving forward and they've done some things. Their TPI area and inlet kind of just a masterful piece of engineering just to be able to increase that air speed coming out.
Eric Rupnow:Get a further throw than 10 feet. We can throw that air 30 feet into the house. Well, we've got a lot more stratification of that air. Then that air is warmer. You know we're talking about cold weather ventilation. That's kind of a key and in that that throws like that on minimum ventilation. Maybe we don't need that stir fan right away on that second set of nests, maybe we can move it in a little bit. Just gives us more opportunities. We've kind of gone that way. We're going to stick on making the best fans we can make with the best efficiencies and the highest outputs and the least amount of maintenance. We focus on that. Partner with people who are doing the best on a singular thing. Then we can provide kind of that ventilation package.
Brandon Mulnix:Yeah, you've been around the block when it comes to these projects and usually when you and I get together we're able to kind of talk through some of the industry challenges. If you can talk directly to a farmer and what's the value of ventilation and why it's so important, this is your opportunity, because the listener group may not be from necessarily farming, but they also they're all over the industry and can look and see what ventilation is. So do me a favor explain the value of good ventilation in a house and some of the aspects that we may not know about.
Eric Rupnow:Well, I mean first and foremost it's animal well-being, right. It is providing an environment where those animals can thrive. They need all the things that we as human needs they need. You know, they need to be cooled down, they need to be warmed up. We all do better when the air is a little drier, a little less humid. If we've got too much humid, we all get a little hot. If it's 85 degrees outside and the humidity is 90%, guess what it's going to feel like it's 110. Just all of those things.
Eric Rupnow:But when we talk to people and I can bring up just a simple, simple little deal that we worked on here a couple of months ago with a beef cattle farmer, right, and he's got this small building that he drops calves in and that's kind of kept a little warm, but then once they're out of there a day or two and then they move on out into maybe a three-sided shed or even just a windbreak, because once that calf is up and going it can handle some of that weather. Well, he decided he wasn't going to go with our design, he just wanted something to de-stratify some air. Decided he wasn't going to go with our design, he just wanted something to de-stratify some air. I'm like, okay, that's fine. Got the call back I guess I was at IBBE and he says this doesn't work. I said what do you want to do? You want to do the design that we did, where we were pulling air in and we were forcing the de-stratification with this de-stratification fan and then we were exhausting air and getting a 15 minute air exchange rate because we've got to get that moisture down.
Eric Rupnow:Basically, he's bringing in calves and it's cold and wet in there and he can't get calves dry. He's getting, you know, lung issues, pneumonias and things like this popping up real quick and he's like I got to change my way. So I think just providing an environment for your animals to thrive, whatever species they are, that's kind of the. That's kind of the. That's the key. That's the key. I mean, if you're going to go cheap on ventilation, I say good luck I've been in buildings with high ammonia levels that are just absolutely.
Brandon Mulnix:There's a reason for that. You talked about turnover air turnover. I mean all those animals are breathing. They're breathing in oxygen, letting out co2. That air's got to turn over.
Eric Rupnow:If it's not, it gets stale if it's a broiler, that broiler's putting out BTUs like crazy, you know. If it's a dairy cow, I mean you just think BTUs coming off of that cow that's eating that much forage and she, just she basically has this huge fermentation vat that's putting off heat. But we've got to displace that somewhere. We've got to make these buildings work right. A little pull. It's a whole lot different than a turkey. A turkey is different than a pig.
Eric Rupnow:You know, as you move through this, what their temperature regulation is is different in all species. But I think, when you get right down to it, it is about providing that nice, dry environment prevents disease, prevents animals from crowding right. So if we create a hot spot inside of the center of a barn and whatever animal it is wants to get away from there, they're getting away from there, but then they're crowding and they're creating more heat. And I mean you need a place where everybody wants to lay out and it's like the beach, you know, everybody wants to lay out, get a little sun, you know, and just make it a nice, beautiful environment. When we take disease out of this program and we everything's healthy and the nutrition's right, we're going to create products right At a really high rate.
Eric Rupnow:Every employee that's working with their boots in the barn every day. They want that. They want their life easy. They don't want to be treating animals. They don't want to be sorting off stuff. They don't want to be pulling deads. They don't want any of that. If they can walk through a barn and go, everything looks good and walk out, that's the easiest part of their day.
Brandon Mulnix:Well and it's easier for them too, in just their environment. I mean, if it's a healthy environment for the birds, it's going to be healthy for the staff, and in a day where staffing is tough, that's their work environment. You know, my office is at 70 degrees all day long. They should be able to have 70 degree all day long as well, even when it's a hundred degrees outside, and it's possible with ventilation.
Eric Rupnow:It is. It is, it is possible and that's the beauty of it. It's just GND I talked about a little bit about can we take maintenance?
Eric Rupnow:away right that they don't have to check this stuff, and I think that's the goal. I don't think we're there yet 100, but that's the goal. Any issues that we've had were we. We work to make them to get to that goal. I mean that's the whole, whole point of it. You know we get that goal that we put, I think, when I started the first case. So what are you selling me? I said I hope to sell you some fans and I hope that you don't talk to me again until you need to buy some more for a new project. Right, I mean that's kind of the goal. Same with you. We can set up a control system for somebody and it just works and it does what it's supposed to do. And you call me for some minor tweaks here and there, but the most part it's just you're rock and roll.
Brandon Mulnix:I mean that's, that's always the goal that is prism's goal, by the way, is to make your stuff sing and not have to have people call you at all and to make sure that 70 degrees, based on the animal movement and everything else, that works together. And amazes me as these buildings continue to evolve and new designs come out and different environments, different locations, whether it's the dry deserts of Arizona versus the humid Midwest, or even humid or Southeast. It's crazy because there's different things that have to happen. Now I'm going to change subjects here and I'm going to have you talk direct to that farmer who's getting ready to build his building. What would you say to him or her?
Eric Rupnow:In today's world. First off, what are we growing here? What are we putting in that building? I mean, that's where it starts. And then what his vision for it is too a little bit. I know we worked on some projects together where the vision was brought to us right. It's my job to execute that vision. Well, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes there's a guy who comes I'm putting hey, what are your thoughts here? I can put together the numbers for you. I can do this, and one of the biggest things that I try to do when we can is to not only show them how maybe the calculations work together to make this right flow simulation so they can see what this building is going to look like. One of the really hard things to do in a flow simulation is mild, cold weather ventilation through a cage type house. It's very, very difficult because you've got so much going on. So we kind of trust that cold weather math and then we work towards that warm weather, say at a pullet house.
Eric Rupnow:What drives the agriculture industry is what does the consumer want too? So we're putting in yourself into a position where you can meet a niche. Sometimes you know where the caged free thing is big right, I mean it just it is, and it's driven by the consumer. How can we put yourself in a position where that barn can be cage free and then if oh hey, guess what those don't have any value to us, now we can put 15, 20 more birds in this house and make it into a standard deal too. I think there's a lot of that stuff that's got to be taken into consideration. One of the things that's been pretty big right now obviously every poultry farmer and dairy farmer now deals with the high path avian influenza. We've got some customers that are talking about filtering barns, doing positive pressure filter. Sometimes those are remodels. That creates huge challenges because you've got to be completely sealed up, you know. So this isn't just we're going to put some fans in the wall and slap. So this isn't just we're going to put some fans in the wall and slap some filters in there and it's going to make a difference. No, we have to make sure that this is really, really, really done right so that we control every bit of air that goes into and out of that building.
Eric Rupnow:The other thing that we kind of drive is fan efficiencies. As we talk about this, I ask the question a lot of times, especially in a bigger project. What are you paying for your electricity? Is it four and a half cents or is it 15 and a half cents? Where do you live is going to drive what type of fan you might buy, just because of capital costs, of a high efficiency fan or an ECM or electronically commutated fan, which basically is taking your power from AC, converting it to DC power and then we can control how many RPMs that fan runs, and the slower the RPMs, the higher CFM per watt becomes, depending on the size of the facility.
Eric Rupnow:I mean, I've got a farmer in the Southwest that, running his fans the way he does, he figures he saves himself $20,000 a month. How is that not a return? And when we did the math on it, he bought 45 more fans than he needed, but he says they paid for themselves in six months. And I think that's some of the value when we look at things is how can we make your barn more efficient? Talked about things being rated to power wash or dry wash. How easy is it to access what you need? We talked about that light trap combination system as kind of being something that's fairly innovative. You know it's built to be able to just open doors, like on a closet, instead of taking out stuff and setting it over here. It's all hinged up and then you lock it up.
Eric Rupnow:I'm trying to make things user friendly and make things work together and I think that's a, that's a product that came from working with an industry partner who wanted to solve a problem. Those are things that we that I really like doing. I like finding that, but when you talk about that farmer, it's really about getting to see and understand how air flows. I think that's the biggest piece.
Eric Rupnow:And it's the hardest thing to kind of see. It's easy to see once you've got it done and you put some smoke behind it. Oh yeah, we can see how the air flows. We've talked a little bit in the past about tunnel ventilating a pullet house or a layer house that has cages in it. You see a lot of times where they look at what is the size of that inlet door or how many birds are in there and they do it off CFM per bird.
Eric Rupnow:And you really have to look at what you're putting in for fans is basically the dimensions of your walkways in between the cages, because that's where the air is going to flow. Everything else is a brick and it doesn't really flow through the cages. It doesn't flow the way maybe we think it should. Water and air the same. They find the path of least resistance and they take it. We see that a lot dairy barns too, where by the time you get into them the air is up above them and it's not doing you having any value to cooling your livestock. So it's really about just understanding and being able to see how air does move and flow.
Brandon Mulnix:One thing that might come off a little controversial, my thought is, is challenging old time farming a little bit. Even if you think you know exactly what is the right thing to do, it's okay to challenge what you know by getting other people's opinions and poking holes in it. One of the common projects we worked on. The veterinarian that was in charge of it basically said here's my concept. Guys, tear it apart. And he didn't stop. I mean, he continually evolved that concept and continually to made modifications, because it realized that with cage-free it's a different process, there's different challenges. The height of the room brings in its own challenges. You think, oh my gosh, this house over here has an additional three feet. That should be perfect. No, the air went there and it wasn't circulating the rest of the barn. And you're like well, that doesn't make any sense. Well, no, it does. You just said it. Path of least resistance. I mean, how have you recently challenged somebody that thought they knew exactly what they were doing and you were able to go in and basically change their mind?
Eric Rupnow:you know, bring me the cadillac, you know, make this barn a cadillac, right. And after we were sitting down for a while I said I'm sitting here talking to you guys and talking to you about this stuff and you look confused and the man in charge says you know, we've been sitting here doing this forever tunnel ventilating these barns down here in the southeast, and you just told us we've been doing it wrong. And he said the first person that I've ever listened to that made sense and it was on that thought process and where is your pinch point for air? So basically they've been overworking fans. They said that their maintenance on their old belt drive stuff was just insane, like three times a year changing stuff out. I said that makes sense. Basically, have an understanding of where your pinch point is. That's the most amount of air that you can pull through. Whatever cubic feet you've got, square footage you have in that opening, that is the maximum amount of CFM you can put on that wall, exhausting it out. And once they kind of understood that, they're like okay, let's rock and roll. I can tell you what, taking you over to something a little bit different a dairy calf born ventilation. Everybody kind of has a concern about keeping calves warm. So they do some positive pressure stuff with tubes and they do work well and they kind of move stuff throughout the house, but you're not getting much cooling out of that.
Eric Rupnow:Again, the same thing where we looked at that project and said break this apart. I had somebody on the end of it come to me and say how do I do this? And we went and broke it down and we ended up tunnel ventilating dairy calves. And I got up there and I met with this gal who's running this farm and there's like 30 of these little barns there and they're like 26 feet wide and 162 feet long. I'm like how is this going? She goes well, this is the first barn, this is the first group that we put in here and we're getting ready to move them out today. And she says I haven't treated a calf yet. I said how's that compared to what you used to do? She goes we used to treat calves every day. They allowed me to work with them to challenge how they've done things. And when we got done and put it together, they're like yes, let's roll the way we went and success. The person running it isn't going to be mad because they're okay with not treating. Now they get to really do a good job of their care and daily tasks. And then they again with high efficiency, low maintenance motors. They don't have to worry about any maintenance and messing around with things. So there's always a way to challenge the old school way.
Eric Rupnow:I remember talking about that project that we worked on, you know. I remember going to another farm where we worked on expanding that facility too, and I remember the veterinarian being in the barn with you know, one of the workers and telling him kind of what was going to happen. And he says you're going to hate it, right, you're not going to like this. It's going to be harder than what you're doing now. And I think in talking with people now, as opposed to three years ago now, that they've kind of figured it out. It's not that hard. Once you kind of say, hey, we can do this, and everybody buys in and says let's rock and roll, I think they figure it out. It's not that hard. I think Iowa State University swine people talk about ventilation as their unpaid employee and I think that's a real important way to kind of feel that out. I mean, I like that term. It's my unpaid employee, it can make me money if I take care of it and utilize it properly.
Brandon Mulnix:Well, it's interesting because one of the challenges that we found is the designers aren't the ones in the barn sometimes how they translate that information and that learning down to their farm staff to operate it in the way that it was designed. Because if you take some of the best chicken houses and you don't operate them as designed, or you decide to maybe not seal them up as well, and now the air is uncontrollable in those spaces, they can be a nightmare.
Eric Rupnow:You're so right. And it doesn't matter what species of animal it is, if it's designed right, you know, making sure it gets trained not only just trained on how to set it up and run it and those kinds of things, but training on how to, you know, troubleshoot it and make sure that the things are the way they're supposed to be. Ok, let's just set this thing up and let's measure our airspeed. You know, coming out of an inlet, let's measure our airspeed as we kind of exit the barn. You know we can do some things a whole lot easier without animals in there, just to make sure that they're working right.
Eric Rupnow:You know, when you talk about commissioning a brand new barn, I've always encouraged people to let's think about kind of recommissioning it in a simpler way in between our groups, just to make sure it's still doing what it's supposed to do and maybe an actuator didn't slip a little bit and those inlets are open a half an inch more than they're supposed to be or whatever that situation is, and we can reset it and get it right. Yeah, it's always about execution on the farm. You know, sometimes there's employees that they have the right mindset to them. You can say, okay, on this farm you're our ventilation guy to make sure that these things get kind of recommissioned and that they make sure that they are everything's acting the way it's supposed to and performing the way it's supposed to. Or if we see birds in a house that all want to congregate in one spot, there's a reason for that. Let's figure it out and let's fix it.
Brandon Mulnix:Yeah, there's definitely a lot of opportunities as we talk about minimum ventilation and we talk about heat With the new designs in cage-free, as these birds want to get comfortable, heat's important. When you incentivize a staff member, maybe to say, hey, you need to keep your heat bill down, then there's this balance of do I do the right thing and put heat in the barn? Heat's important.
Eric Rupnow:Outside heat, dry heat. Dry heat is important and it's very important to make sure that you get it in, you get it stratified to get it mixed. You see this in this wine industry too, where propane's expensive. I mean, and we all get it, propane is expensive. So we need to make sure that our minimum ventilation is dialed in as best as you can get it dialed in for that winter. But you're still pulling in air. That's today in Iowa that's 15 degrees, right? So how do you get that air tempered as quickly as you can before it kind of lands on your flock, right? So we talk about speed of that air coming in through that inlet. Can we get it to throw 20, 30 feet? It's throwing in there, it's mixing with that air, that, it's tempering that air. And now we've got a nice warm environment.
Eric Rupnow:We talk about circulation fans. Circulation fans are the greatest thing we've got in terms of wintertime. You know we can't have a heater every 10 feet, right? You know we've got four or five heaters inside of this huge 70 by 500 foot room. That's enough BTUs to warm this farm up in relation to those birds. How do we move that heat around so that heat is in every corner of the building where those birds are utilizing that space, eliminating cold spots and hot spots both the same.
Eric Rupnow:Most of the time when people try to eliminate or reduce the amount of heat without dialing in their ventilation, you're probably going to cause health issues.
Eric Rupnow:Just because it's the easiest thing to do, we're going to back the fans up. Well, now we've slowed the air speed through there, so the birds closest to the intake wall are probably a little cold, and now the birds on the other side are kind of wet and warm and they're not very happy either. It is about air exchange rate and making sure that you're exchanging that air in that room four times an hour. Now things are a little bit different when we start talking about bullets and things like that, where you've got a very small bird in a very big space, finding your ways to manipulate your way through that through some purging of air and things like that. We're going to pull a lot for a short period of time and allow that stuff to kind of temper in there a little bit better. So there's a lot of ways to do it. Burning propane creates some really good growing livestock if we do it in the right and efficient fashion.
Brandon Mulnix:So what's the future of ventilation? Look like fashion. So what's the?
Eric Rupnow:future of ventilation look like. Future of ventilation, I truly believe, is being able to dial in and know exactly what your output of that fan is. Coming from the swine industry, minimum ventilation was about a pit fan, right? So you're pulling air in through the attic, you're tempering it through a ceiling inlet. Air in through the attic, you're tempering it through a ceiling inlet and drawing it down across the pigs and out the side. They're going to run that fan by changing the amount of electricity that's going to it, right, the voltage going to it, to slow that fan down. Well, even in fans that we have like that, nobody's got a test to tell you how many CFM it's doing and most people just assume that it's a linear thing. So if at 2000 CFM, at 50% it's doing a thousand, no, it's probably doing about 600. So I think that's a big piece is just being able to dial everything in that way. I also think that this filter thing, especially on the pulling houses, might have a pretty big future, but again it comes down to how everything is executed. Have a pretty big future, but again it comes down to how everything is executed.
Eric Rupnow:The challenge is we talk about preventing disease, airborne disease. We still have to rely on all of our other biosecurity practices to make sure that we don't carry those diseases in with us. Whether it's keeping out other birds, it's our biosecurity systems. And changing clothes, shower in, shower out all the products that we bring into these buildings, making sure that those are decontaminated, because basically we're talking about diseases. They're airborne. It means that they're everywhere, right, so we can conceal as barn up and do it right, and I think that has some value. But again we have to have everything else in place too.
Eric Rupnow:I think positive pressure things as we look at poultry, I think can have some value. But again we have to have everything else in place too. I think positive pressure things as we look at poultry, I think can have some value. It's not used very commonly and it does have its challenges.
Eric Rupnow:But I think the beauty of it as we talked earlier about these birds over here, they're crowding together for a reason or whatever that we have kind of these hot spots and cold spots in a barn and if we do that positive pressure correctly, I talk about it like blowing up a balloon with a small hole in it, right, so we can kind of keep that balloon full and what that means is we're filling up the balloon. The building, the airspace is the balloon. If we fill that up, we know that the air is hitting every corner of that building, so the air should be similar in terms of its quality, speed, everything throughout that facility. It'd be a challenge. I'd love to take on that challenge. I'd love to have one of these guys come and say Eric, let's work on a positive pressure barn, doesn't have to be filtered or anything like that, just a positive pressure barn. I would be all in on it, I imagine, you would.
Eric Rupnow:I just think it's. I've talked to some very large swine integrators that built some buildings that have some ventilation problems. I've been in them and you know, talked about them and things like that. And I talked with them at the Iowa Pork Deal again. I said, you know, finisher whatever they were 249 and 251, whatever these finishers were I said I'd love to do this with you. Just let me know. Just let me know, because I think we can make you know, I think we can make those pigs grow exponentially faster than they are in certain parts of those buildings because they create dead spots.
Brandon Mulnix:Well, what's unique about you, eric, is you've got experience from across different species, and I think sometimes you know we think specialists in this industry, the ones that are only doing you know eggs, or only doing poultry. I mean that's their specialty. And what's nice is your experience from around the industry. It's all about animal health, it's all about the different species, because I think the lessons you're learning in swine and turkey and all these are really paying off as wins in the egg industry as well.
Eric Rupnow:Yeah, and I think that's just an important piece of what J&D is. You know it was founded as a dairy-centric deal and it's still probably 50% of our business. But I'm gonna tell you that this poultry and layer side of it if it hasn't taken it over, it's getting pretty close. Our name is getting out there. This is bringing some value to the industry. We like the fact that we're building these things and constructing them. When Don decided to spend two and a half million dollars to put in an AM amp approved test chamber so that every fan that we sell we know exactly how it's going to perform, and then I go out to the field and I'm like it's performing a little too well, we got to dial this back. You know, and those are the things that I really like and being able to have those capabilities right inside the door, right president's office. She walks 30 steps and she can walk into that test chamber and talk to those guys and see how things are going.
Eric Rupnow:And it's really exciting to be a part of something that is trying to push the envelope, trying to find the new things. I worked with somebody in my past who said you know, there's one trend that never changes in terms of going up. You know, we talk about trends, whether it's stock market trends or we talk about CME trends, things like that. One trend doesn't change in that the human population continues to grow and agriculture's job is to grow with it and, in the most efficient way, be able to provide them nutrition, not just food. We need nutrition. So we need eggs and poultry and milk and dairy and beef and we need it all. How does J&D find a role in making producer X get X amount of eggs over his average in that building? Or this dairy farmer? You know the peak dairy production in terms of cows milking is January, february. We're sitting in it right now. How do we extend that milk production, that peak milk production, out into August or September and not get those drops in June? You know how can we extend that production out, help them become more efficient?
Eric Rupnow:In the poultry industry there's a lot of people who want to be on the smaller side of things. How can we make them better at what they do and create more, more product and more profitability. And the same side, the integrator side, the big facilities, half million hens in a barn or 10, 12, 25, 000 cows in a barn how do we make it so that makes them more efficient and makes that environment that much better for them too? It's everybody. I've had people that take care of little goats and they have 400 dairy goats on feed and okay, let's go. We've created ventilation systems around the facilities they've had and taking some aspects of poultry, some aspects of swine, some aspects of dairy to bring all this stuff together and you can create a system for something that you've never created before. It's kind of fun.
Brandon Mulnix:Well, Eric, I really do appreciate your time. Is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?
Eric Rupnow:I always be looking and challenging yourselves in everything that you do. I think that's what you do at PRISM trying to find innovative ways to provide solutions, sometimes in my office or in your office. If you don't know a problem, you can't come up with a solution. So I always feel free to reach out to help find solutions to whatever problems that you've got. And again, we're here to play our roles in providing nutrition to our world. Get right down to it. That's what we do.
Eric Rupnow:It's cool to watch and work with people who are innovative, working with you guys and some of your smoke detection things. I just think that's awesome. I've taken it to a couple of big dairy farmers and said, hey, what do you think they're like? I don't know about that right now. They're thinking about it. We can put this in a lot of different places and make it work. Working with TPI and how they're innovative in their things. We started working with another company just on some lighting stuff and how do we change lighting and how we do things in the dairy. Instead of just a straight LED light, can we do things different? Because we see what we're doing in the poultry industry, in the layer industry and how we use lighting to create the optimal condition for those birds to lay the most eggs. How can we do that in the dairy industry for those cows to produce more milk? I always try to be innovative.
Eric Rupnow:I was asked in a stay interview the other day of our core values which one do I align with? Innovation is a number one, one of the things that I bring up, and I think it was like your first podcast, maybe your second one. It was right after IPPE last year and you mentioned that you know you'd like to see more of the people that work in the barns every day getting an opportunity to go to those shows again, and I've noticed that across the board, with the swine and the dairy too, that it's not necessarily the people that are in the barn every day that go to those. And I think having those people maintenance, people, production people be able to walk through those shows and visit with people and see what's out there and maybe learn something or bring things to us as vendors, I think that's an ideal thing that probably maybe needs to come back to us a little bit. It's always nice to talk to somebody who's in the barn every day and get their views and what they see.
Brandon Mulnix:Well, I could say I couldn't say it better, eric, but you did a good job of quoting that from last year and I'll reiterate that as we go into show season is probably some of the best innovation comes from the guys that are in the barns doing the job, and as the decision makers get further and further away from the barn, it's hard. The good input comes from the guys doing it every day, from the guys putting in the work. In today's world, I mean, some of the best people in this industry are the maintenance guys that are solving problems and they can tell you what's wrong with your equipment.
Eric Rupnow:Yep, they do. They do. It's great. I like it. There are certain ones out there that are great about it.
Eric Rupnow:We've got this problem and it's reoccurring. All right, I'm going to look into it. Look into it. Yep, that is a problem. We're going to get you fixed right. If it's not a simple fix, it's redesign right. We've redesigned things several times to make sure that they do hold up, because that's a tough thing about being innovative so you can work on something, you get it put together, it tests great in a chamber and all of that On the farm is a different story, and a fan that's 60 foot off the ground is a different story than one that's 10 foot off the ground or three foot off the ground. So we have to learn those things and bring them back and make them better. But that's what we want is we want those guys that are out there, whether it's the in-saw crew or whether it's the people that are running the barn and taking care of the birds. We learn, we make it better and we move forward, but, again, staying innovative.
Brandon Mulnix:Well, eric, with that, I'm going to pull us into a close here, because I think you and I could talk forever.
Brandon Mulnix:We usually do we usually do, and so thank you, thank you, j&d fans, for providing Eric to the industry and giving him an opportunity to solve problems across species. And, like I said, it's been my pleasure working with you on different projects and I know you truly are making a difference in this industry, so thank you for that. Listeners, I can only challenge you. This is going to be coming out before peak. Please visit us at peak. I know J and D is going to be at peak. Prism controls is going to be at peak. Please stop and visit, ask your questions, send more people.
Brandon Mulnix:If you want to do something about your career, don't wait for your boss to send you to the peak. And want to do something about your career, don't wait for your boss to send you to the peak. And what I mean by peak is Minneapolis. It used to be called the Midwest show. Don't wait for your boss If you want to do something right for your own career.
Brandon Mulnix:Go and learn. It's a great place to learn and I'm sure that you're going to bring more innovation, more ideas back to the farm and in the future, your leaders are going to be more than willing to send you because there's lots of conferences, there's lots of tech talks, there's lots of vendors. Those are the places where everybody kind of lets their guard down and you get to see a lot of things. So with peak coming up here in a few weeks when this thing airs, please attend the show. Stop by see Eric, stop by the folks at Prism Controls, visit with them. I'm not going to be there this year, I'm going to be at a different show. Definitely, stop by and say hi. So with that, I'm going to consider that my plug for Prism Controls, like I do.
Eric Rupnow:Listeners share this with other folks. Share this with your maintenance person, share this with your boss. I don't care, because this is the kind of information that's going to continue to change the industry.
Brandon Mulnix:When we work together as vendors and continue to work as an industry, we're going to continue to grow and we're going to continue to feed the world.
Eric Rupnow:So thank you listeners.
Brandon Mulnix:Really appreciate. You have a great day.
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