Jennifer Woods wants to make rural Canada a safer place.
Probably the best way to do that, she says, is to make sure people know
how to handle animals.
“Livestock are the number one cause of injury in rural Alberta,” said
the Alberta-based livestock industry consultant. “We want people to go
out there and be safer.”
To that end, beginning this spring Woods will conduct workshops on safe
and humane handling of livestock.
The workshops, being offered through the Alberta Farm Animal Care
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Association, are designed to help producers and others handle all kinds
of livestock safely in all situations.
It’s a follow-up to a similar course on handling livestock in
emergencies, such as road accidents, that Woods and AFAC have offered
for a couple of years.
Woods said that course has generated a lot of interest from producers.
“Since then I’ve had a lot of requests for a course on livestock
handling, apart from the emergency response,” she said.
An information brochure about the course says it’s targeted at
producers and their families, 4-H groups, and workers at places like
auction marts, assembly yards and research stations who routinely
handle livestock.
The course will cover a range of topics, including:
- Recognizing distress, illness or injury in animals.
- Designing livestock handling facilities to be safer for animals and
handlers.
- Safe handling of sick or distressed livestock.
- How to calm, rescue or temporarily confine livestock.
- Providing first aid and other medical treatment to livestock, and
when and how to euthanize injured or sick animals.
- Legal and ethical issues surrounding the handling of livestock.
While there is already some information out there on safe livestock
handling, Woods said the workshops are designed to be more in-depth
than what’s currently available.
“We wanted to get more practical,” she said.
“We wanted to deal with the ranchers’ everyday life and the things that
get dangerous, like vaccinating and transporting sick animals and
equipment like squeeze chutes, and like calving and breeding safety for
horses.”
For example, one of the biggest causes of injuries is something as
simple as improper use of gates. People try to hold animals back with a
gate or close a gate before an animal is through or open a gate at the
wrong time.
Another common problem is not restraining animals properly when they
treat them with medications.
“People underestimate their strength and agility and what they can do.”
She hopes that people who take the course will be more aware of what
can happen and more aware of what can be done to prevent injuries.
“We want people to experience less stress in the handling of their
animals,” she said.
“Nothing is more stressful than when you get worked up and the animals
get worked up.”
Money to develop the program was obtained through the federal
government’s Canadian Agricultural Safety Program, a four-year, $4
million program with funds from the Canadian Adaptation and Rural
Development Fund.
One of the goals for the third year of the program, running from April
1, 2001 to March 31, 2002, was to develop programs related to livestock
handling.
The workshops will be offered across the country, starting in late
April or early May. More information can be obtained from Woods by
telephone at 403-684-3008, by e-mail at
reflectedj@aol.com, or from AFAC manager Susan Church at 403-932-8050.
