Farms.com celebrates #OntAgVolunteers with online contest

Apr 20, 2017

Contest runs during National Volunteer Week

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Farms.com wants to honour members of Ontario’s ag community who donate their time to local organizations.

In celebration of National Volunteer Week, which runs April 23 to 29, Farms.com is running an online contest. The winner and the organization he or she supports will each win $100.

“Many producers donate their time to local farm or commodity organizations, 4-H associations, as well as other organizations to help promote and celebrate Ontario agriculture. It’s important for us to recognize those people and organizations, as they strengthen and support our rural communities,” says Andrea Gal, managing editor of Farms.com.

Canadians volunteered close to 2 billion hours in 2013, according to Volunteer Canada. And a majority of volunteers said they do this work to contribute to the community. A large portion of volunteers said they give their time because they’re directly affected by a particular cause.

To enter the Farms.com contest, contestants must send an original tweet using the hashtag #OntAgVolunteer. Contestants must also follow Farms.com’s #Ontag Twtitter account, if they aren’t already doing so.

The contest opens Thurs., Apr. 20. It closes Thurs., Apr. 27 at 12:00 EST.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.