A seed planted when neighbours noticed a farmer struggling to feed his cattle has grown to become a world leader in finding better ways to manage livestock.

Alberta Farm Animal Care celebrated its 25th anniversary during its annual general meeting in Olds on March 21, accepting congratulations from its founding manager, Susan Church and from Temple Grandin, world-renowned specialist in animal care and behaviour.

Church said there was a thrust within the industry in the late 1980s to answer a rising tide of animal activism by making sure farmers were doing the best possible job. Ray Fenton, a veterinarian with Alberta Agriculture, had been touring the province with a lecture entitled “The Nervous Nineties,” warning farmers that activism was ramping up and that the industry needed to set the pace on improving animal welfare. The province had also set up a project to examine existing and emerging issues within the livestock industry.

Early in 1993, producers and industry banded together to form Alberta Farm Animal Care, the first group of its kind in the world, and approached Susan Church to handle marketing and communications.

In her presentation to the Olds AGM, Church described five “pivotal encounters” that were key to the course AFAC took in its development as a world leader in farm animal care.

The first occurred during the 1993 Alberta Beef Congress in Red Deer, when she was approached by a producer who was worried about his neighbor’s cows. That conversation led to the development of the 24-hour Alert line, offering help to anyone dealing with farm animals in distress.

“We switched our attention from the activists and instead focused our attention on fixing what needs fixing.”

Secondly, Church and her fledgling group heard some sage advice from Temple Grandin, who had been asked to address the Western Stock Growers Association.

Church asked Grandin to offer some advice to a small organization that had no money and whose only staff was limited to one day a week.

“She said, “‘Fix what needs fixing . . . get into your schools, that’s where the battles are being fought, and use your researchers – they’re the best in North America.’ Those were her exact words, and AFAC followed through on all three of those,” said Church.

The third event was a phone call in 1995 from a person from the SPCA, who had pictures of downed and crippled pigs that had been injured in transport.

She took the pictures to a representative from Alberta Pork, which led to the first ever industry meeting in North America to discuss transport of unfit livestock.

“It was a tough discussion. Where is the line in the sand? What is acceptable and what is unacceptable?”

Those pictures led to the development of great strides in the transport of unfit animals, said Church.

Fourth came from a woman living in Blackie and married to a local firefighter who had been called to collisions involving livestock haulers. A student of Temple Grandin’s at Colorado State University, Jennifer Woods had some ideas about setting up a course to train emergency response personnel, including firefighters and police, how to manage frightened and potentially injured animals after a crash.

“That course, Livestock Emergency Response Course, was first sponsored by AFAC and developed by AFAC.”

Lastly, Church recalled how she mustered the courage to draw the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association into the fold. “I was too shy to pick up the phone and call this guy,” said Church.

An opportunity to buttonhole the ABVMA arose when a friend, who guides trips along the Nahanni River, mentioned a pending trip that would include one of the organization’s senior officials. Church and her husband joined Dr. Duane Landals of the ABVMA for the trip, during which Church was able to discuss the formation of AFAC and its objectives.

By the end of their river vacation, he had heard her story and was eager to get his organization and its members involved.

Although she left AFAC after 15 years, Church said she continues to nudge it along from the sidelines. “I had to deal with a fair number of grouchy old guys. I really learned that they were the ones with the biggest hearts and the most compassion.”

 

WORDS OF ADVICE FROM TEMPLE GRANDIN

In line with Grandin’s earlier advice about taking the story of livestock to schoolchildren, a Grade 9 student from the Rocky Mountain House area was invited to introduce the CSU professor who occupies the pinnacle of animal welfare and behaviour research. Sierra Brand from the Rocky 4H Beef Club had done the research and prepared a talk about Grandin for her first ever 4H speech competition. She carefully massaged its contents for the AGM and conference.

Brand described for the crowd of about 200 people how the psychological effects of autism enable Grandin to think in pictures and to see and feel what animals see and feel.

That special talent helps her understand and solve problems that neurologically typical brains might miss, said Brand, drawing a comparison with the new TV series, The Good Doctor, featuring the life-saving skills of a physician who has autism.

“Since (Grandin) sees life through the eyes of animals, she has the incredible gift of feeling their views. She says the single worst thing you can do to an animal, emotionally, is to make it feel afraid,” said Brand.

Rising to the podium after Brand’s introduction, Grandin said she was unaware as a young person that other people didn’t think in pictures, commenting that contributions of visual and audio thinkers help provide a broader spectrum of understanding.

In terms of sustainability in livestock production, Alberta jumped out in front and has set the standard for the rest of the world, said Grandin. “I think we also have to define what’s not sustainable. I’m looking more at the commercial supply chain, where I’ve had to do the unpleasant task of taking a ranch off, and I have to have an extremely clear guideline,” she said.

That would include scoring on cattle handling, body condition scores, health problems, environmental damage such as runoff from manure entering a river and living conditions of workers.

“If you’re running a supply chain, I have to set a floor of the bad things I won’t allow. Hopefully, the good operations will be a whole lot better than that.

“The other thing I’d recommend is get guidelines up on open websites.”

Grandin said she had found instances where industry partners had vastly improved standards, but failed to make their improvements public. For example, the broiler industry had been targeted for its criminally vicious roosters. Breeders have been able to create a kinder, gentler rooster and eliminated the criminals from their industry. However, they have failed to tell anybody about it. Grandin said she conducted an exhaustive search online and was unable to find any papers or other information about their success.

“I couldn’t even find an advertisement with a picture of the new, nice rooster.”

Other steps include genetic improvements in leg conformation to reduce lameness issues in sows and cows.

She emphasized the need for the livestock industry to toot its own horn and make the public aware of its accomplishments in creating a gentler and more sustainable environment for the animals upon which it is based.

“I’ve been in the industry for a long time, and there’s been so much improvement. The thing that frustrates me, especially now that I’m doing a lot of talks at colleges and universities outside of the livestock industry, is we’ve done a lot of great things and nobody knows about it. This really concerns me.

“We have done better at telling our story, but still not enough people know about it. We need to keep communicating with the public about the good things that have been done.”

 

CHINA’S BIG, BIG BARNS

AFAC’s crowd was treated to two highly condensed presentations on new developments within the swine industry, with Red Deer veterinarian Egan Brockhoff and University of Saskatchewan ethologist Jennifer Brown outlining the work they have been doing with pigs and the people who raise them.

Brockhoff, President of Prairie Swine Health Services, a former president of the ABVMA and veterinary member of the Canadian Pork Council’s management group touched on a variety of issues in animal health.

Within his talk, Brockhoff described his astonishment at the scope and scale of an 18,000-sow operation he recently visited in China. Brockhoff is bound by a confidentiality agreement that limits what he can say about the farm. He cannot reveal its location, nor can he release pictures for publication. However he was free to discuss the facility and its systems.

From outside, the massive complex looks more like a hotel than a hog barn, said Brockhoff. The pigs are housed in two nine-storey buildings, with 1,000 sows per floor, he said in an interview after the conference.

Each floor in the new barns, which were completed and populated within the last year, is operated as a separate unit with its own staff and systems, including fresh water and waste management. Workers gain access to their units through a system of electronic retina recognition, which prevents them from entering any of the other units. They live in staff housing beside the barn, further reducing the risk of contaminants entering the barn from outside sources.

Brockhoff said he was impressed at the adaptations that have been made on the farm to create a viable and sustainable hog operation with potential for further improvements in the future.

Brockhoff said the farm operator had met with him in Canada, and then asked him to come and assess their facilities. The barns are in a remote area, by Chinese standards, and located in the middle of a fairly large plot.

Some units have been built with gestation stalls for sows, while others use loose housing.

“They love the technology around electronic sow feeders and what that means for animal management,” said Brockhoff.

“It actually simplifies their world a little bit, moving into those loose housing models.”

Stacking the units rather than building single-floor barns was entirely a space consideration for the farm, he said.

“China has been doing a lot of work to reduce the amount of space that barns take up and reduce the environmental footprint of barns. So, they’ve just decided that building up is way more practical than building out. It is a great, efficient use of space – absolutely a remarkable, efficient use of space.”

Brockhoff said he could see no concerns with pathogens moving between the units.

“The best way to think of them is nine big barns stacked on top each other. Each floor has its own, contained manure management system. Each floor has its own incoming air, filtered; all of its outgoing air is filtered and washed.”

The filtering system set up for the exhaust air eliminates odours and pathogens that might otherwise escape into the environment, said Brockhoff. Water is supplied from a large reservoir in the mountains.

Housing the staff on site means each worker remains inside the controlled-access zone at all times, he said.

Overall, he assesses the bio-security and health status as very good. There are challenges, however, around purchasing high-health gilts. Most gilts are being imported from Canada, Europe and some barns in the United States.

“If you want a pure, specific-pathogen-free pig, often times those European and Canadian pigs represent their best option,” said Brockhoff.

He feels the model now at work in China would translate well into any region that is dealing with space issues or where they want to maximize resources.

“Because those barns are required to have a manure management system and a manure processing system, if you’re going to build a big manure processing system, well then you might as well use it to its full capacity,” he said.

Concentrating the animal footprint in a small area allows “a ton of efficiencies” with potential for further development.

The manure is being dehydrated and composted before being put on crops, said Brockhoff.

There is potential in the future for the manure to be put through a digester to generate methane that could then be used to generate electricity.

“What fascinated me the most was their absolute commitment to innovation and efficiency. They very much wanted to reset the paradigm. They very much wanted to be early adopters of technology. They very much wanted to not let the constraints of industry norms drive them and guide them.

“These guys really started thinking out of the box. The Chinese are really good and dealing with large populations in small areas.”

Brockhoff said he plans to visit the farm again in the future to see how it has progressed and take note of new developments.

“I’m excited to see how they’ve progressed. It really affords the opportunity to introduce new technology, robotics, stuff that we’ve never considered before,” he said.

 

NOTCHING BACK THE STRESS AT WEANING TIME

Brown, an adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan, discussed various areas of study underway at its swine research facility, the Prairie Swine Centre.

“I would say, even on the best farms, weaning stress is one of the biggest stressors on young pigs,” Brown said in an interview outside of the meeting.

She told a brief but fascinating story about the potential for socializing piglets to help prepare them for the stress of weaning and for living with larger groups of pigs.

Like foals and calves, piglets are born precocious – eyes open and ready to run, said Brown. Unlike foals and calves, their mother doesn’t know them from the way they smell, but from their presence in her nest after she has given birth. That’s why it’s so easy to cross-foster piglets, said Brown. A lactating sow will accept any piglet that finds its way into her “nest.”

There are also indications that allowing the sow to perform nesting behaviour encourages her production of oxytocin and therefore raises her desire to “mother up.”

Additionally, piglets are ready early in their lives to start investigating their environments and to meet with other pigs. Like dogs, they have a window of opportunity during their development when they are primed for socializing and learning to get along with others of their kind. Unlike puppies, however, the socialization age for piglets is much earlier, said Brown.

Thus arises the opportunity to use that window as a means of preparing piglets for weaning while they are still nursing.

Various tools are available, such as putting a pop-up door between farrowing stalls that would let piglets from two different litters mingle with each other a few days after birth.

Additionally, there are various models for creep feeding piglets, including shutting them away from their mothers for a set period each day. Mom gets a break and the piglets get a chance to learn that they can survive and get along on their own.

Feed offered in larger particles appears to have a strong bearing on how well the piglets adapt to solid feed, said Brown. It’s not a question of nourishment at that point, since most of their intake will still come from the sow when they are allowed back into her box, she said.

Recent trends, including the conversion to loose-housing of sows and extending weaning to 28 days after birth will have a bearing on the benefits producers could see from early socializing of their piglets, said Brown. There is some indication that removing the piglets from the sow for a few hours at a time will also encourage her to cycle while she is still lactating, so the sow can be bred back before her piglets are weaned.

It is assumed that well-timed socialization, along with the benefits of reduced stress at weaning, can be of some benefit to all piglets and especially to gilts being developed for the breeding room.

“One reason (early socialization) is more important now is that if we’re going to be managing sows in groups, then if the gilts are properly socialized, you’re going to see less problems with aggression in your sows.

“It also benefits market pigs, too, because they’re going to be groups with different pigs over time and sent to slaughter in different groups,” said Brown.

The role of researchers investigating socialization is to improve systems and methods that engage the pigs’ natural behaviour patterns in a commercial setting, she said.

Based in High River, AFAC is a non-government agency supported by various commodity groups and industry partners. Its ALERT line, 1-800-506-2273 is available 24 hours a day for people seeking help for animals in distress. AFAC also co-ordinates a network of livestock emergency equipment trailers owned and maintained by rural municipalities across the province and available whenever livestock are involved in a vehicle collision. Please see www.afac.ab.ca for more information.

We are a multi-species livestock welfare organization and the collective voice of the industry on animal care and welfare in Alberta. •

— By Brenda Kossowan