Farmscape for June 3, 2013

A draft updated Canadian Pig Code of Practice has been released for public comment.
The National Farm Animal Care Council is coordinating the revision of eight codes of practice for the care of farm animals in Canada.
On Saturday, the Canadian Pork Council and NFACC released a draft Pig Code of Practice triggering a 60 days public comment period.
Pig Code Committee chair Florian Possberg notes we've had many changes since the pig code was last updated in 1993.

Clip-Florian Possberg-Pig Code Development Committee:
This is a draft of course.
We've come up with a number of key changes.
In terms of how we house our breeding animals we've proposed that we go to loose housing for new barns fairly soon.
For existing barns it would be a phase in period so it would happen over time.
In terms of how much space we have in our growing and finishing pigs, we spent a fair bit of time on that as well and came up with what we think are minimum space allowances.
In terms of painful procedures we looked at the practice of castration and included what we think is acceptable ways to reduce the pain of castration with anesthetic.
There's a number of other things for smaller items, like we recognize the need for enriching our pigs' environment and those sorts of things.

Following the 60 day public comment period the Pig Code Committee will reconvene, review the comments and come up with a final code.
Possberg notes the committee is quite interested in hearing from producers, industry stakeholders and the general public.
For more information or to submit comments visit the National Farm Animal Care Council web site at NFACC.Ca.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council