Doug Sawyer’s first calf of 2009 was born on the first day of spring, one of the few March days that was warm enough to make calving easy this year.
The chair of the Alberta Farm Animal Care Association said he didn’t need government legislation to ensure he took proper care of that calf, especially during poor market conditions.
“Financially it is a bigger issue because I need to ensure I am profitable and have every one of these babies alive,” he said.
Sawyer prefers voluntary animal welfare guidelines over the government rules his counterparts must follow in Europe.
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“Legislation puts a bare minimum standard on your animal welfare,” said Sawyer, who ranches nears Pine Lake, Alta. “We believe we are above that.”
While he believes cattle producers are good caregivers, there is little evidence to prove it, which prompted Alberta Beef Producers to commission animal scientist Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein of Agriculture Canada to examine what happens to animals such as Sawyer’s once they leave the farm on a truck and head to market, perhaps thousands of kilometres away.
“We have not done enough benchmarking because we are spending all our time and energy on improving animal welfare,” Sawyer said.
Codes of practice exist for most farm animals, but there is little evidence to show people are following the guidelines. If common practices are not good enough, Sawyer said, they must be changed.
One incident can undo all the good will the public has for farmers, he added. Producers need to continue proving they are conscientious, even though it is hard to defend the entire industry against sensational videos on television and the internet showing animals being abused on farms and in slaughter plants.
“We are going to be held accountable for everything we say. We can only give the facts,” Sawyer said.
Schwartzkopf-Genswein also supports voluntary programs and education rather than government legislation.
“We have to be careful we are not bombarded with rules that don’t fit,” she said.
Governments and food companies can impose new rules, but they need to have scientific backing and need to work under Canadian conditions.
She said European animal transportation laws are not practical in Canada. For example, they insist on a 24 hour rest stop after eight hours of travelling, during which time the animals must be fed and watered on the truck. Animals cannot be transported when outside temperatures are below 0 C.
“Eight hours would not work very well in North America,” Schwartzkopf-Genswein said.
In Canada, animals must be fed and watered after 48 hours, but if they can make the trip in a few more hours, they can stay on board for 52 hours.
“Offloading is sometimes more stressful,” she said.
Her study should be completed in June to help the industry make improvement that will be made necessary partly by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s plans to change animal transportation laws.
Little cattle transportation research has been done in Canada in areas such as trailer temperatures and the health of animals before and after loading.
The study analyzed 10,000 surveys from transportation companies that import and export cattle from Alberta. It covered mostly fat cattle sent to packing plants and some companies that move cull animals to market.
She also looked at how U.S. country-of-origin labelling has affected animal transportation. Only a handful of American plants will now accept Canadian cattle, increasing the distances trucks must travel. As well, COOL has increased waiting times at border crossings and caused unloading delays at plants.
On average, the new rule has added an extra hour of transportation.
“Fat cattle going south in my opinion can manage the trip going down there. They are healthy animals, they are fed and watered before they leave,” Schwartzkopf-Genswein said.
Fat cattle trucks are sealed at the feedlot but there could be issues for feeders because they are younger and more subject to stress.
“We did see more shrink losses and deads and downs in the feeder cattle group,” she said.
“They are less hardy to manage longer distances. They dehydrate more quickly.”
