Farmscape for April 17, 2018

The Saskatchewan Pork Development Board reports over 100 Saskatchewan swine operations took advantage of finding made available under Growing Forward 2 to purchase equipment to improve swine welfare.
Under the Saskatchewan Swine Welfare Program Saskatchewan pork producers were eligible to receive up to four thousand dollars per Canadian Quality Assurance registered site for the purchase of needle free injection equipment or euthanasia equipment.
Bridget Gray, the producer Services Manager with the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, says the program was developed in response to new animal welfare requirements.

Clip-Bridget Gray-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
When the National Farm, Animal Care Council's Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs came out in 2014 this program was developed to try to help producers try to help producers adapt to the requirements in that program,
It was fairly specific.
In this case it was created to help producers adopt pain control for elective husbandry procedures such as castration and tail docking or to purchase needle-free injection technology, which as some benefits over traditional needle injections in that it causes less pain and can actually dispense much lower does of vaccines or medications.
The fact that people are aware of the requirements and taking that extra effort, because they are expected to contribute money to this as well, to the improvements, whether it's to the biosecurity or to their euthanasia protocols or their vaccination protocols for that matter.
I think it's all kind of the continuous improvement that is the goal when it comes to welfare, the health of our herds and the reduction of antibiotic use.

Gray says 42 farms applied for funding for the purchase of needle free injection equipment and 71 farms applied for funding for the purchase of euthanasia equipment.
She says the total equipment purchase under the program was just over 320 thousand dollars.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork