Growing pigs and raising kids: Vantiger’s Show Pigs

WINFIELD — Not every 4-H or FFA student showing pigs at the county fair or other competitions comes from a farm where they have the privilege of raising their pigs from conception through the show ring.

For Cody Vantiger, it is a privilege to continue his passion for swine through breeding pigs, mentoring students, and showing his own children the ropes.

Vantiger got his start in the show pig industry at approximately 9 years old when he first started showing pigs from his family farm.

“I grew up on a farm and grew up with a passion for pigs,” Vantiger said. “ … My dad’s full-time job was farming. We had cattle, hogs, sheep, and row crops. When I was younger we bred and raised our own pigs.”

As a National Guard recruiter in Henry County for his day job, and armed with an intimate knowledge of the industry, Vantiger knew it would be difficult to raise pigs on a small scale and still make money, or even break even.

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In 2015, however, he found a way to do just that by breeding and selling show pigs for young 4-H and FFA students much like his younger self.

For some, like Briar Bender, Junior at Mt. Pleasant Community High School, they rely on breeders like Vantiger Show Pigs for the opportunity to show off their chops in competition and learn the ropes of raising and training these animals.

Despite not living on a farm himself, the connections in the agriculture community has given him not only his pigs, but places to house them, and the skills to show the pigs.

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Bender got his start showing pigs following in the footsteps of his brother but as he moved on, he began to work with Vantiger to keep obtain his show pigs and continue showing.

“I got connected with Vantiger because my brother enlisted in the National Guard,” Bender said.

Vantiger Show Pigs raise and sell approximately 150 pigs each spring consisting primarily of crossbreds, but also Yorkshire and Hampshire breeds.

While he does primarily focus on providing pigs for more local youth, he says that Vantiger Show Pigs are shown throughout the Midwest in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas.

“I’ve sold all the way out to Idaho,” he shared. “ … I’ve sold all the way out to Pennsylvania and sold down to Georgia before, Texas, Minnesota.”

Vantiger, however, wanted to pursue this passion for more reasons than simply chasing a dollar.

“We always say in the industry we’re not raising animals, we’re raising kids,” Vantiger commented.

“I know what the industry did for me when I was younger,” he said, “It helped to develop me and taught me all the different values that you learn from raising livestock.”

Some of these lessons and values that Vantiger learned included seeing a project through, putting hard work into an end product, working with livestock, putting others, or animals, before yourself, and animal husbandry.

Vantiger feels that he gets to pass much of this knowledge on to his customers as her chooses to sell primarily to locals.

“We work with them through the year,” Vantiger said. “We don’t just sell them the pig and say good luck. We’re working with them from the time we sell them in the spring all the way through the county and state fairs. Every week I’m making rounds to everybody that I sold to, to work with them.”

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According to Vantiger these visits include checking on feed ratios, inspecting how to pig looks for show, and equipping his customers with skills in walking and training their pigs.

For Vantiger what he does is rewarding from “ … just getting to work with some of the younger kids and just watching them develop over the years.”

“To watch them coming from somebody that doesn't know anything, doesn't even know how to walk, doesn't know what to feed it, to being a senior in high school and a lot of times It's pretty hands off,” he said. “You stop and by to kind of make sure they're doing the right things, but you know a lot of those kids when they're seniors they know what to do. So, it's rewarding to see the growth there and even more so rewarding to see them succeed then in the showroom.”

One of the best parts of breeding, selling, and working with pigs for Vantiger is seeing his hard work and the hard work of his customers pay off as they bring home Grand Champion status and other awards from competitions.

“We were reserve breeding gilt out at the Kansas State fair,” he said. “We’ve won a division down at the Missouri State Fair … and we’ve won multiple county fairs as well. So, we’ve had success at all levels.”

According to Vantiger, in 2020 one of his show pigs actually took home Grand Champion Market Hog in the 4-H show at the Iowa State Fair.

“I tell everybody like there's no feeling like when we won the Iowa State Fair in 2020,” Vantiger said. “It's something that a lot of breeders a lot of families dream of being able to do.”

To take home Grand Champion at the 2020 Iowa State Fair was extra special to Vantiger.

“To this day it was still the largest Iowa State Fair in history for the number of hogs shown,” he said.

Now-a-days Vantiger is enjoying passing along his love for pigs to more than just the next generation of 4-H and FFA students. He is also passing it along to his own children Luka, 3, and Ada, 7 months old.

While Ada hasn’t spent much time with the hogs, Luka is already well on his way to sharing this special passion with his dad.

“Luca actually got to show for the first time last year when we went to a jackpot show,” Vantiger said. “We thought as soon as he saw we weren’t going into the ring with him he’d turn around and head back our way, but he ate it up and loved it.”

Thanks to the help from his family, his in-laws, his wife and kids, Vantiger happily continues to pursue his passion for pigs and help cultivate it in his family and the hearts of many others.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com