Hampshire Landrace Duroc Yorkshire

Due any day with their second child, Dan’s wife, Kim, hurries in to take Alivia to the living room for a movie break while we chat.

Alivia grins at Dan as mommy escorts her out. It’s obvious that this little girl thinks this man hung the moon. And there’s no doubt, the feeling is mutual.

Yes, Dan Burzlaff says, life is good – and not just on the home front. After years of showing at various NSR events, he reached a pinnacle last summer, claiming the title of Champion Yorkshire Boar at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa.

“I couldn’t be happier, really,” he says.

But life hasn’t been without obstacles for Burzlaff.

When he was just a boy, he, his father and sister were severely burned in an explosion, and they were all scarred for life. The healing and the path to recovery are hard to imagine.

But, Burzlaff says, he wouldn’t change a thing. You see, he says that it made him the man he is today.



Making a start. Burzlaff has been involved in the swine industry for a lifetime. He began showing pigs as a boy, and his dad, Don, always had raised commercial sows.

He credits his uncle, Dick Swenson, as the man who gave him his start with purebreds.

“Some of the first sales I went to, I went with him,” Burzlaff says. “And he gave me my first purebred sow.”

He expanded his purebred herd when he purchased four Duroc sows at a sale he attended with his ag teacher Illinois.

Although Burzlaff’s first focus was on Durocs and Hampshires, he began to build his Yorkshire herd about five years later, as his FFA project.

By the time he began college at the local Kirkwood Community College, his herd had grown to nearly 30 Yorkshire and Hampshire sows in production.

After graduation, he moved to a house in town and began selling commercial boars from his parents’ farm.

“I sold commercial boars for quite a while, until the market went sour,” Burzlaff says. “Everyone went to showpigs at that time. I worked into that slowly. It was a big change for me to raise showpigs instead of commercially oriented livestock.”

Evolving to today. Burzlaff continued to expand his herd to about 40 sows, and in 1998, purchased the farm on which he lives today. He farmed the farmland at first, but now rents it out.

The desire to expand was there. But Burzlaff knew it would be difficult to do alone. So three years ago, he approached his friend, Mike Whitman, about farrowing some sows for him.



“He said he would just as soon become a partner in the dealinstead of him working for me,” Burzlaff says.

Burzlaff added 60 sows in partnership with Whitman, and B&W Showpigs was born.

Today, they run between 75 and 100 sows, depending on the time of year – 30 to 40 owned by Burzlaff, and 60 to 70 in partnership. About 75 percent of the sows are Yorkshire, with the remainder being crossbred.

In addition, Burzlaff has teamed up with Brad Eddie of Storm Lake, Iowa, on the purchase of boars to service the sows in their operations.

“We decided to make some investments together,” Burzlaff explains.

“It’s really helped to have the boars here and be able to use them. I think it’s important to try your own matings, and do what you think is right.”

Although Burzlaff says he and Eddie are not running a boar stud together, they do sell and ship some semen to help cover the cost of the boars.

Making the sale. Although people come from many states to purchase Burzlaff genetics, he says that local customers can sometimes lead to the most-rewarding sales.

“It’s nice to work with people on a personal level,” Burzlaff explains.

“It’s nice to be able to work with the kids, follow through, see how the pigs develop and watch the kids do well.”

But when the time comes for their annual spring showpig sale, customers fill the stands from as far as Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The majority of the pigs make the trek to Illinois and across Iowa.

Four years ago, about 85 head were traded at the first Burzlaff/B&W Showpig Sale at a local salebarn.

“It was a dirt floor and not anything really special,” Burzlaff says. “We didn’t clip the pigs at all – we just ran them through. It was a good year and a good crowd, and it’s grown since then.”

Today, the sale has moved to the local fairgrounds, where nearly 125 head are sold each April. “It’s a little nicer facility and it keeps the pigs clean,” Burzlaff says.

In addition to marketing showpigs at his annual sale, Burzlaff also promotes his animals through NSR type conferences around the country.



Show-ring success. Burzlaff attended his first NSR show about 10 years ago – the Summer Type Conference in Des Moines.

“I brought one gilt and stood third,” he says. “I was pretty happy about that.”

His sweetest success came last summer, as he claimed Champion Yorkshire Boar at the World Pork Expo with Danny B, an ARK1 Raw Power 13-4 son that sold for $58,000 to Top Cut Showpig Sires of Hollansburg, Ohio.

“It was very rewarding to finally get a championship under the belt,” Burzlaff says. “It was something that I’d dreamed of for quite a few years.”

Burzlaff says that he values fellow breeders’ opinions as they judge NSR events.

“To know that they like the product gives me a really good feeling – to know the breeders themselves think that you’re going in the right direction,” he says. “I think breeders know a lot more than anyone else on these hogs, on what they need to look like to get them to do what you want them to do.”

And producing the type of animal that fellow breeders appreciate means more to Burzlaff than the size of his farm.

Where from here? Burzlaff says he is content with the size of his operation today, and he doesn’t foresee expansion in the near future. His main goal is to continue to raise a consistent, quality hog, and to raise sows that can be sows as much as showpig producers.

“They still have to have pigs, and they still have to raise them,” he says.

And he’d like to focus more on raising purebred Yorkshires as breeding stock and showpigs. Most importantly, though, is to continue to build a good name for himself. That is something that doesn’t happen overnight.

Patience is a virtue. If you’re just getting started in the purebred swine business, Burzlaff recommends patience in building respect and a name for yourself. The best way to get that respect, he says, is to treat people fairly and honestly.

“The more you can get guys to come back, the better your business will be,” he says. “Ninety percent of my business is repeat customers. But they don’t come back if you don’t treat them right. My dad always told me it takes a lot of years to get a good name, but it takes 30 seconds to get a bad one.”

Burzlaff has built that good name for himself. Just ask Marvin Straub of Elgin, Ill. He has gone to Burzlaff for his grandchildren’s showpigs for several years.

“He doesn’t sell something and run,” Straub says of Burzlaff. “He’s very friendly and helpful, and seems to have honest hogs. And he seems to appreciate his customers.”

Building that good name can be a challenge for anyone. Add to that an injury that leaves scars for life, and some might think the challenges too great to overcome.

But Burzlaff would be quick to disagree. He believes any obstacle can be a character-building experience.



Nothing too great. It started as a routine 4-H meeting at the Burzlaff household in 1981. That was, until a newly installed furnace exploded. Although there were 26 people in the house at the time, only Dan, his father and his sister were severely burned. The family lost all of their possessions, and they were forced to start over again.

For some, the challenges of starting over and healing would tear a family apart. But Burzlaff says this experience drew his family closer.

“As a kid it was hard to have people staring and making fun and wondering what was going on. As I’ve grown older, it’s made me a stronger person, I would say,” Burzlaff says.

“You learn to have people accept you for what you are. And if they don’t, there’s not a lot you can do about it. No matter if you’re in my situation or if you’re a regular person and they don’t like the way you are or the way you dress.”

The reaction of children is often the most amazing, he says.

“Kids are really curious in the beginning,” Burzlaff explains. “They stare and wonder and ask their mom and dad questions. But if I go up and talk to them, they realize that I’m just a regular person. They forget all about what I look like, more than adults do. Kids are just curious.”

Always look up. No matter what you may be facing in your life, Burzlaff says never let it get you down.

“When I was a kid going through the worst of it, it helped me to remember that there’s always someone out there who’s worse off,” he says.

“No matter what you’re going through, there’s always someone out there who’s going through something worse. Just be thankful for what you do have. Don’t let that change you.”

Burzlaff truly lives the words he speaks. Business seems to be going nowhere but upward. And as he looks at his wife, Kim, and now his two daughters, Alivia and newly arrived Elyce, he is thankful indeed.