Federal government invests in industry-led animal welfare activities

Feb 22, 2019

Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lawrence MacAulay has announced an investment of up to $4.56 million to the Canadian Animal Health Coalition (CAHC), on behalf of the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), to help update and develop Codes of Practice for the care and handling of farmed animals. The investment was made through the AgriAssurance program of the Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
The investment will be divided between four activities including:

Updating the transportation Codes of Practice for the care and handling of farm animals during transport;
Updating the dairy Code of Practice that will address new scientific findings, changes in industry practices and address changes in market and consumer demands;
Updating the goat Code of Practice that will respond to growing buyer and consumer expectations for on-farm animal welfare; and
Developing a new Code of Practice for farmed finfish. Fish welfare is a new and emerging animal welfare concern for which the industry needs to be able to demonstrate its commitment and alignment with public values and consumer expectations.

Source : Alberta agriculture and forestry

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.