WINNIPEG – A conference here last week ignored the meatier issues of animal welfare and focused too much on public relations, says the director of the Winnipeg Humane Society.
Vicky Burns told farmers and veterinarians at Animal Care ’95 that people have legitimate concerns about farm animals that are continuously confined, such as sows in gestation and farrowing crates.
“I think it’s important for (farmers) to understand that it isn’t just animal rights people who have those concerns,” Burns said. She described her organization as a conservative animal welfare group whose members are not opposed to the use of animals as long as they’re treated humanely.
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Focus on farm animals
Recently, members of the humane society have been calling for their group to get more involved with farm animals. Burns said the group has toured pregnant mare’s urine ranches, which collect the urine to produce estrogen therapy treatments, and hog barns to educate itself about production practices.
“We would like to work in a co-operative fashion,” she said. “I think that a lot more could be accomplished that way than becoming adversarial.”
Burns warned the audience not to gloss over the facts about continuous confinement. For example, she said the code of practice for hog operations is misleading because the publication’s cover “sort of shows pigs having a lot of freedom of movement and so on.”
She also said PMU ranchers seem uncomfortable talking about foals going to slaughter. While her group doesn’t have an issue with horses being slaughtered, she said the industry should be as open as possible.
Hurt the industry
“Be very careful because if the facts come out and it’s not what you’ve been saying, you’re not going to do your industry any good,” Burns said.
Allan Preston, Manitoba’s chief veterinarian, told the conference that continuous confinement is not as bad as it may appear.
He recalled going on a tour of a veal operation near Montreal: Before going into the barns, he was opposed to the idea of calves being raised in crates. After seeing calves in both a stall system and in group housing, his attitude changed. The calves in the crates were healthier, cleaner and more content than those in free housing.
Until researchers come up with alternatives to crates or cages that allow both the animal to be more comfortable and the producer to make a profit, confinement methods will have to make do.
“It’s not a perfect world, it’s not a perfect condition to raise animals in, but by and large those animals are being very well cared for and their demands are being met quite well,” Preston said.
British farmers are being forced to adopt alternative ways of producing hogs because of public concerns about confinement, Burns said.
“Why don’t we take a proactive approach here in Manitoba, particularly in the hog industry, which we’re planning to increase so much in size?”
