No worries for those with less than stellar memories of their school years; the quizzes involved a set of multiple-choice polls posed throughout the day that participants could answer on their cellphones. Results were posted on the screen in real time, so participants could see the responses as they came in.

The same technique was adopted a week later at Alberta Pork’s Annual General meeting. AP executive director Darcy Fitzgerald said the cell-phone polling technique provided some interesting results and gave respondents the opportunity to cast their votes in total anonymity.

Along with the snap polls, RDSTW shortened presentations to 20 minutes, allowing for a larger number of speakers addressing a wider range of topics, from pain-managed castration of baby boars to wading through Canada’s complex labour regulations.

Some of those topics have been outlined in other stories within this issue of Prairie Hog Country.

Some highlights from the workshop are summarized here.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Gail Cunningham, technical services veterinarian for Boehringer Ingelheim, got the ball rolling with a discussion of antibiotic benchmarking and resistance.

Producers can find economic benefits by measuring and benchmarking antibiotic use in their operations, said Cunningham.

“It’s back to the future day,” she said in her presentation.

“Today (Oct. 21) is the day that they went to when they went back to the future,” she said, referring to the blockbuster movie starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and a gull-winged DeLorean car.

Some predictions from the movie have come to fruition since it was released in 1985, said Cunningham.

“I’m surprised with how fast we’ve gotten to that day,” she said.

People who now use their phones to google information about the industry are seeing messages about the impact of antibiotics and the prediction that misuse of the drugs would develop resistance to the diseases they were meant to treat, said Cunningham.

“You’re starting to see in the media that acceleration of the discussion on microbial resistance,” she said.

“We’re also starting to hear about the link between antibiotic use in animals and whether or not we’re responsible for any of the resistance in human populations. That link is likely, at best, tenuous. But whether or not that link is made, we need to be seen as an industry as working on this issue.”

Benchmarking involves collecting information and comparing it to a standard on your own farm and within the industry to help you make better decisions, said Cunningham.

Producers need to be aware of what data to collect, including how drugs are administered to their animals and what types of antibiotics are used, she said.

“The Netherlands is an example of a country where the industry really did manage (antibiotic use) on their own. They were given a directive in 2009 to reduce antimicrobial use by 50 per cent. They actually exceeded that. They’ve reached about a 70 per cent reduction and maintained that. However, they feel that is as low as they can go.”

She showed how a number of farms started closely managing their antibiotic us and how, no matter where they started, they all ended up in the same place.

“Regardless of where you start, there are improvements to be made and there is an end point which I don’t think we can go below,” said Cunningham.

“Industry management is key. You need to do that before regulations are put in place,” said Cunningham.

ASSESSING ANIMAL WELFARE

Veterinarian Ed Pajor, a professor in animal welfare at the University of Calgary, picked up the torch with his thoughts and advice on animal welfare audits and the technical criteria being used.

A definition of animal welfare was put forward in 2008 by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), based in France and involving veterinarians from 180 countries.

“One of the important components … is about animal welfare referring to the state of the animal,” said Pajor.

There are a number of different types and standards for assessing animal welfare involving a wide range of groups, from insurance companies to government agencies.

“Here in Canada, when we talk about codes of practice across all the different commodity groups, what we’re really talking about is non-mandatory codes and guidelines,” said Pajor.

The standards that now exist are based in science, from genetics to pain management, he said.

OIE vets are developing standards for various commodities, said Pajor.

“It is clear that work on developing international guidelines and assessments for the swine industry across the world will be started in the very near future,” he said.

“I had a call on my cell phone this morning from the National Pork Board in the United States asking me to be involved in this process,” he said.

Producers across Canada have by now been made aware of the new Code of Practice for swine management, he said.

“There’s no question that a new assessment process has to be developed, and it has to be developed to reflect the new code.”

There is a lot of discussion, with an attempt to try to launch a new assessment process in 2017, said Pajor.

The National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) has been putting together a new framework geared at having all animal groups fall under the same process, he said.

“For organizations that have had their own animal care assessment practices in place, such as the swine industry, it’s unclear as to how the existing animal care assessment approach will fall into this type of framework,” he said.

He outlined three types of assessment: A first-party assessment in which the producers evaluate their own practices, a second-party assessment done by a veterinarian working with the producer, or a third-party assessment in which an independent audit is performed.

The third party assessment, being financially and personal independent from the farm, is considered to be the gold standard, said Pajor.

“It’s really what people are looking for when they ask, ‘What’s happening on the farm.’ People want to be able to take the assessment and, for example, a retailer wants to say: ‘Here is the supply chain where I get my pork products from. Here is the producer, here is the farm, here are their third-party assessments,’ in order to make sure the critics are satisfied with the animal welfare program,” he said.

“There is a desire (among consumers) to know that animals are being well looked after.”

PAIN MANAGEMENT

Red Deer veterinarian Egan Brockhoff waded in later in the workshop with a discussion of pain control, specifically when castrating pigs.

Brockhoff said the cost of administering pain killers and anesthetics is minimal in relation to the benefits seen from reducing the period of stress and pain that takes the piglets off their feed for a period of time after they have been processed.

“Pigs castrated at three days of age gain less over the next three days versus non-castrates,” Brockhoff wrote in his synopsis.

Under the new Code of Practice, analgesics (pain killers) will be required for all surgical castrations, regardless of the age of the pig, while it recommends a combination of analgesics and anesthetics to control pain during and after the procedure, he said.

The Code also recommends that a veterinarian perform castrations on pigs the weigh more than 23 kilograms.

Leaving pigs intact is not an option in Canada, primarily because consumers are offended by the smell of boar taint, said Brockhoff.

Surgical castration remains the most economical and effective means of dealing with boar taint, aggression and other issues that arise among intact males, he said.

Workshop sessions also included discussions of sow management, managing numbers and troubleshooting feed quality.

The Red Deer Swine Technology Workshop is a production of the University of Alberta with support from the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency, Alberta Pork and a variety of commercial sponsors.

This year, the organizing committee was led by Alastair Bratton of Pinnacle Swine and a team of eight, including Egan Brockhoff of Prairie Swine Health Services, Ken Engle from Prairie Swine Centre, Laurie Fries from Sunhaven Farms, Geoff Geddes and Javier Bahamon from Alberta Pork, Scott Hyshka from Sunterra, and  David Tschetter from the Holt Colony. The workshop was managed by Kate Cheney, operator of ConventionALL Management.  •

— By PHC Staff