Community Involvement Crucial for Animal Welfare Success, Says Expert

Oct 14, 2024

Dr. Jude Kong, the Canadian Research Chair in Community-Oriented Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease at the University of Toronto, highlights the importance of engaging local communities in animal health and welfare strategies. Speaking at Animal Health Canada’s 2024 Forum, which focused on “Coordination, Collaboration, Communication,” Dr. Kong emphasized that building community involvement is essential for gaining support for welfare initiatives.

“Too often, communities are overlooked,” Dr. Kong explained. “For real progress, it’s essential to work collaboratively with farmers, researchers, organizations, and government agencies. By co-creating solutions with these communities, we ensure they have ownership and a stake in the outcomes.”

Dr. Kong underscored the importance of proactive, real-time scientific solutions that can alert policymakers when issues arise. However, without community participation, he warns, these solutions may struggle to gain acceptance.

“We can’t just impose solutions on communities,” said Dr. Kong. “When they help create these strategies, they become invested in their success.”

Source : Swine Web

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.