In an industry racing toward high-density automation, smart sensors and complex regulatory mandates, the term “stockmanship” can feel like a relic of the past. But for Hyatt Frobose, North America Commercial Director for Jyga Technologies, true stockmanship hasn’t become obsolete—it has evolved. It is the missing link in how we raise replacement gilts, the secret to mastering group sow housing, and the ultimate reason why technology exists in the modern barn.
The U.S. pork industry spends countless hours debating sow mortality and stressing over the next wave of housing regulations. But according to Dr. Hyatt Frobose, we are often treating the symptoms while ignoring the root cause.
Stop Growing Gilts Like Barrows
Sow mortality has been a hot-button issue for years, Frobose says. He believes the pork industry can do more to set females up for long-term success. The real crisis in sow mortality isn’t intentional culling of older sows (Parity 5 and 6); he says it is the alarming rate of Parity 1 and 2 females exiting the herd prematurely.
“We wonder why so many of those girls are leaving the herd early after their first litter or second litter,” he points out. “I think it is a multifactorial problem, but I think a big part of it is how we raise those gilts in the growing phase.”
Although the industry may realize it needs to grow gilts differently than their barrow contemporaries, it’s a hard shift for many people to make.
“It’s easy to treat them like a finishing pig,” Frobose says. “Far too often, we raise our gilts like they’re barrows up until the day we breed them, and then we wonder why they exit the herd after their first or second litter. I think it’s a garbage in, garbage out concept of if we really expect these girls to thrive and succeed.”
Fast genetic growth means gilts on ad-lib finishing diets grow too fast and get bred too heavy, he says. The consequences of breeding gilts too heavy can be devastating, from compromised feet and leg structure to poor lifetime reproductive performance to permanently higher lifetime maintenance energy/feed costs.
“If we can individually manage gilts in the growing stage, we have the opportunity to reduce variation in these gilt pools, and maybe help some lightweight gilts grow a little faster,” Frobose explains. “And most importantly, we might be able to slow down some gilts that are growing too fast.”
Gilts are the genetic future of the herd, not just another pen of market hogs. Setting them up structurally to reach Parity 3+ profitability is a baseline stockmanship obligation, he says.
Precision feeding is one way that producers can bring different diets or different feed additives into the mix. And he says it doesn’t necessarily have to be a technological option.
“There’s been a lot of low-tech ways people have done that over the years, and if we look back to the to the ‘90s, for example, a lot of people floor-fed gilts,” he says. “You don’t see many people doing that today. But people floor-fed gilts so that they got the right amount to the pen, even if there was some variation between pens, because ad lib feeding those gilts at that stage was linked to poor reproductive performance in their lifetime.”
Debunking Group Housing Myths
In addition to gilt development, Frobose spends a lot of time helping producers design, build and renovate sow facilities. Ultimately, this equates to thousands of conversations with producers of all sizes.
One of the biggest myths he tries to bust is that transitioning to group housing means you will inherently have poorer performance.
“I think that’s a risk,” he says. “I think there are more opportunities for mistakes when you move to group housing, but we’ve got sufficient data and hundreds of thousands of sows now in loose housing. I’ve been able to see equal, and at times even better, productivity than a sow that was housed in a gestation stall throughout pregnancy.”
Once he was able to see those results, he felt obligated to bust that myth.
“We can give these sows a better housing and higher welfare environment, while still getting high performance and efficiency,” Frobose says. “But change is hard. Being in a role where I can help people make that transition successfully is really fulfilling.”
Is Prop 12 Panic Over?
Although Proposition 12 is still in headlines across the country, he believes producers have largely moved past the panic of how to manage sows in loose pens. Now it’s up to producers to consider if there is a premium available to help offset the added cost of going to Prop 12 or other group housing systems.
Frobose emphasizes that he does not think it’s right for California or other states to dictate how other states should raise their pigs. He says the true obstacle is not losing the stall—it is the mandated 24 sq. ft. per sow footprint under Prop 12 rules.
“In this day and age, when facility costs and equipment costs are so high, and our cost of money is as high as it is with our interest rates, it’s hard to justify spending another third more on a barn that has extra space. Especially when the sows, in many cases, don’t really need it or see any benefit other than to comply with a Prop 12 housing label,” he says.
The message he shares with producers is simple: If you have a guaranteed premium, then go for it. You can get good performance. But if you don’t have a guaranteed premium, be cautious.
Free Farrowing & European Trends
While domestic consumer pressure on farrowing crates is low today, European trends driven by welfare policies and activist pressure typically migrate to the U.S., he says. That’s one of the reasons why he is serving on the National Pork Board Sow Housing Consortium that is studying turnaround farrowing within commercial U.S. systems.
“What we don’t want to have happen is to be handed another Prop 12 and be told, ‘Well, this is what Europe says, so you guys need to do it, too,’” Frobose says. “That’s not because the Europeans don’t have good science on it, but the European industry is fundamentally different from the U.S. and I think it’s our opportunity to be on the offense here because this is a contentious subject.”
Conventional U.S. farrowing crates today measure roughly 5' × 7' or 8' × 6', and on older farms, they are often smaller. European temporary crating standards in farrowing typically advocate for over 80 sq. ft. per sow—nearly double the space requirement, he says. If mandated without flexibility, these farrowing regulations would impose a much heavier financial burden on producers than Prop 12 gestation rules.
What Does a True Stockman Look Like in 2026?
For Frobose, solving the industry’s sow longevity crisis and navigating contentious housing transitions like Prop 12 and free farrowing doesn’t require reinventing the wheel—it requires a return to foundational stockmanship backed by precision science. Today’s stockman may be armed with different tools and technologies, but Frobose doesn’t think the definition of a stockman has changed.
“Technology allows us to distill the important information down, especially on large farms with a lot of animals,” he says. “Hopefully, it’s helping us pay more attention to the animals that need it. I think the successful technologies in the pork industry, and probably any industry, are helping us find the exceptions – to manage by exception.”
For decades, he says stockmen have spent a lot of time studying their animals, and a lot of those animals have been healthy.
“I remember somebody telling me they learned the most about stockmanship while filling water tanks,” Frobose recalls. “When you fill a big water tank, you have to stand there holding the hose, and that’s when you watch the animals and make sure you don’t have something sick or hurt. I think that type of experience taught us a lot about animal behavior. I believe technology today can help us locate the animals that need that extra TLC – that extra observation faster – so we aren’t spending time on the wrong ones.”
To Frobose, stockmanship is still about trying to make animals’ lives better while they’re providing a service to humankind.
Want to hear more of Hyatt’s incredible story?
Tune into the latest episode of The PORK Podcast to hear host Jennifer Shike sit down with Hyatt Frobose to dicuss a variety of hot-button issues, production insights and future trends. Frobose also opens up about a life-altering brain injury and what it taught him about family and leadership.
