Canada’s draft pig code radically updates many hog farming production systems and procedures and addresses most of the contentious issues that have enveloped the in-dustry in recent years.
Some contentious practices will be banned if the code is approved, while others will be maintained and have been given support.
The major changes and issues addressed include:
- Gestation stalls in existing barns will be eliminated by 2024.
- Any barn built after July 1, 2014 must employ group housing for gestating sows.
- Stalls can be used for a 28-day period after sow insemination, plus up to seven more days as sows are moved into open pens.
- Pain control must be applied when castrating and tail docking piglets.
- Piglet teeth removal should only be done for aggressive animals.
- Sick and injured pigs must be dealt with quickly.
- Euthanasia methods are specified for specific ages of pig. Blunt force trauma for piglets, including “thumping” them on concrete floors, is allowed and supported. Gunshot euthanasia for piglets is banned. Gas euthanasia for most older pigs is not allowed.
- Boars cannot be injured, as with “boar-bashing,” in order to stop them fighting during transport.
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The code, which entered a 60-day comment period on June 1, contains a sweeping set of recommendations and mandates on all the significant practices employed in farming.
It was formulated by the National Farm Animal Care Council, an organization that contains representatives of many groups including farmers, animal welfare organizations, retailers and consumers.
The present code was written in 1993 and was based on research, experience and assumptions of that time.
The proposed code places much emphasis upon a pig’s quality of life, as opposed to the more mechanistic elements of animal welfare, such as the presence or absence of measurable signs of stress.
For instance, the code if passed will require producers to provide “enrichment” elements to all pig housing structures so that the pigs have a more stimulating environment.
Another change in emphasis in the code is a heavier reliance on many measures being listed as “requirements” rather than “recommendations.”
In most areas there are some basic requirements that producers will be compelled to follow, as well as best practices listed afterwards. The present code has a bigger emphasis on recommendations.
In the draft code’s introduction, the committee notes that the focus is on achieving good animal welfare, but there is still lots of room for farmers to achieve that in their own ways.
“As a guiding principle, requirements are intended to be outcome or animal-based, as they are most directly linked to animal welfare, and can be applied in a wide range of animal production systems,” says the introduction.
“Since requirements will often state the necessary outcome, the producer has the flexibility to determine how the outcomes can be achieved using individual husbandry and management systems.”
The advent of the new pig code has gathered lots of interest because of the campaigns against gestation stalls and the exposes of pig production methods by activists in recent years.
But other livestock industries will also need to grapple with changing requirements in new codes, as a number of code revisions are scheduled to be completed in the near future.
