By Kristen Kelderman

Nope, you didn’t read the title wrong. This spring, a university friend of mine called me up and asked if I wanted to plan a date with him and 6,000 chicks. An odd request you might say. And no, it isn’t a spinoff dating show from the Bachelor. Those of you familiar with farming have probably already figured out my cheeky attempt at a play on words. My friend Ryan is a broiler breeder farmer and yes, his chicks are yellow, fuzzy and fit in the palm of your hand.

I was very excited to get the call from Ryan. This was my first time going to help out on a chicken farm with the delivery of new chicks. Being the farm kid that I am, I asked what I needed to bring with me - the obvious stuff like work boots, and layers of old clothes to pile under my coveralls. To my surprise, Ryan said all I needed was a t-shirt and jeans. With the cold spring we’d been having I was still wearing my winter coat. I thought I would freeze!

With my dairy farm experience I’m fairly used to working in a cold barn and piling on the layers during chores. But Ryan’s barn is much different than my parents. It was like summer in there! The temperature was quite warm compared to the chilly April morning that was outside.

The inside of the barn was heated by propane to a balmy 30 degrees C on the third floor. I could get used to farming like this! I almost considered calling up my Dad to say that he need to sell the cows and get some chickens.

So why does the barn feel like you’re on a beach in Jamaica? It’s not for the people who work in the barn, it’s for the chicks that would soon call it home.

One of the most important and laborious jobs that a farmer prepares for when getting new chicks is the work before they arrive. The barn needs to be freshly clean and disinfected from floor to ceiling, new shavings spread out, the feeders and drinkers working properly and set to the right height for the chicks, and the barn needs to be the right temperature- nice and warm.

This is important so that the chicks can settle into their new home a quickly as possible. Young farm animals notice small changes in their environment much more than older mature farm animals, especially with temperature. Getting this right is vital to the health of the chicks. You want them to adjust to their new home right away.

On chick day Ryan had all of the hard work done. All we had to do was unload them from the truck. The new chicks traveled all the way from Kentucky and would have been about 12-15 hours old. They rode up in a climate controlled truck, where they were kept warm and dry.

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on September 22nd, 2014 :: Filed under Animal care,Chickens,Farm life,Poultry,Uncategorized
Tags :: animal care, chicken, Farm life

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By Kelly Daynard

Farming is one of the few careers that often spans generations of family members all sharing an unwavering commitment to the land and their livestock. Rochelle Deslippe of Amherstburg, in Essex County, is one such example.

Their family farm was started by her grandfather, Earl, in the 1930′s when he began a small hatchery raising turkeys. The farm was eventually taken over by Earl’s two sons, Jerome and Paul. Today, Jerome’s daughter Rochelle and her three children are the third and fourth generations of the family to be raising turkeys and crops on the farm, and Rochelle wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on July 7th, 2014 :: Filed under 4-H,Animal care,animal handling,Faces of Farming,Turkeys
Tags :: animal care, Faces of Farming, farm, Farm life, Farmers, Ontario, turkeys

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Each summer DVM students from the Ontario Veterinary College delve into that practical experience at veterinary clinics across Ontario and additional locales. These blog posts are an opportunity to tag along with the five of them this summer.

By Chelsea Allan

Week three has come and gone and for some reason this week it has seemed to be extra busy. I’ve been up and at er’ by 5 a.m. almost every morning. But nothing beats waking up early in the morning and driving the countryside. It may seem kind of silly, but I love watching as all of the crops emerge and grow from the ground. Nothing is quite as pleasing as seeing the rows upon rows of perfectly straight lines of wheat, corn and soybeans. And every time I see a sprayer on the road I get this tingling urge to see if I could drive under it.

Here is a sprayer in relation to cars…see I think it is a definite possibility but for sincere safety concerns I would not recommend it to anyone!

This week I had an exciting, but also slightly nerve-wracking, venture to tackle. Navan started a Fresh Cow Program. This program consists of me visiting farms once or twice a week to look at their fresh cows. Holy cow, although I was nervous about making sure I did a good job, I think I was more worried about getting lost. I will fully admit that my sense of direction sucks. Anyway, fresh cows are cows that have recently calved and have started producing milk. During this freshening or transition period there are many potential causes of illness. It is an important time to make sure that they remain healthy because they have significant energy demands from the milk they are producing and they have a potentially decreased immune system because they have just recently given birth.

To read what Chelsea’s job entailed this week, continue reading here.

 

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on June 27th, 2014 :: Filed under AgVocacy,animal handling,Speaking out,Uncategorized
Tags :: animal care, education, OVC

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Jean L Clavelle

Let me begin by saying that this is an incredibly complex issue. To be truthful I do not fully understand how supply management impacts international trade or even really the nuts and bolts of the supply manager system itself so I will not discuss that here (Dairy Farmers of Canada have produced some fantastic background information http://www.dairyfarmers.ca/content/download/1164/13161/version/2/file/Economic-Rationale2011_EN.pdf on the economics of supply management if you would like to know more). Despite my ignorance, I do think dairy supply management is incredibly important to dairy producers and Canadian consumers.  And I want to attempt an explanation of why from the perspective of a consumer not as someone with a dairy background (which I do not have).

Many have critiqued this system but it seems they have oversimplified and under complicated the issue to the extreme.  It had been said that supply management isn’t good for the producer or for the consumer.  But I think ‘they’ are wrong.

So what is supply management?  Supply management controls the volume of milk produced on a provincial and annual basis. Provincial boards manage the milk supply to coincide with demand for their products.  By effectively controlling production, expensive and costly surpluses are avoided.  A price is then set by a federally managed board based on cost of production, consumer price index and multiple other factors.  Not just anyone can supply milk either, dairy producers purchase quota essentially for the right to sell milk. Without quota no one can legally sell milk.

So why do I think it’s important?  Well, the objective of supply management is two fold 1. to provide Canadian consumers with an adequate supply of the product at reasonable prices and 2. to provide efficient producers with fair returns.  And that is the crux of my argument.  Under this system producers are paid a fair price.

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on June 25th, 2014 :: Filed under Agricultural Advocates,Animal care,Consumers,Dairy cattle,Regulations,Uncategorized
Tags :: animal care, Canada, dairy cattle, supply management

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By: Chloe Gresel, CanACT member, University of Guelph

The beef with growth implants in cattle production

There is much buzz in today’s media about wanting hormone free meat. Can I let you in on a secret? There is no such thing. You see, just like humans, all animals have naturally occurring hormones in their bodies. What the consumer is actually trying to get when they ask for “hormone-free beef” is animals that are raised with no hormones outside of their own. Companies such as A&W are trying to scare consumers into thinking that their products are better because they are using beef that is raised without growth hormone implants.

Can I let you in on another secret? Implants are not the enemy. Growth implants are used to help beef animals convert feed more efficiently. This means the animals develop more lean meat and grow more on less feed. Beef animals that are implanted have increased weight gain from 5 to 23 per cent and convert feed to meat 3 to 11 per cent more efficiently than non-implanted cattle. By using less feed, costs are reduced for the farmer and beef is kept at a reasonable price for the consumer. There is also a smaller environmental impact when cattle are implanted, as farmers are using fewer resources to get them finished and ready for harvesting. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Animal Science stated that if we were to remove growth implants from our cattle production system, we would need 10 per cent more cattle, 10 per cent more land and feed, and 7 per cent more fuel and fertilizers to raise the same amount of beef.

You might be thinking that it’s great that implanted beef has a smaller environmental impact, but you still don’t want all those extra hormones in your own body. Well then, let me share this tidbit of information: 15 ml of soybean oil has over 28,700 nanograms of plant estrogen, while a 100 gram serving of beef raised with growth hormones has only 2.2 nanograms. Surprising, isn’t it? Studies have shown that there are greater differences in hormone levels between the different sexes of cattle then there are between cattle raised with growth hormones versus cattle raised without growth hormones.

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on June 23rd, 2014 :: Filed under Agriculture Education,Animal health,Beef cattle,Consumers,Feeding the world,Food,Food safety,Innovation and technology,Misconceptions,Regulations,Speaking out,Sustainability
Tags :: animal care, animals, beef, Consumers, diet, environment, food, food safety, misconceptions, regulation, sustainability, technology

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By Andrew Campbell

(Paisley) - Kendra Leslie grew up in rural Ontario, but didn’t grow up on a farm. Instead, she was an animal lover who was always curious as to what a farm life was like. She was so interested in agriculture, that she took a job with a nearby pig farmer when she was still in high school. What started out as a part-time job on weekends and in the summer months, quickly turned into a passion. Graduating in agriculture from the Ridgetown campus of the University of Guelph, Kendra is now a full-time caretaker of a sow herd for an Ontario pig farmer.

A sow is a female pig old enough to give birth to piglets and Kendra spends her days at work caring for those mother pigs and their piglets. “Every day is different, which is something I love about my job, ” says Kendra. “From feeding the sows to checking every animal in the barn to ensure they are eating properly and are healthy, we take the care of each one very seriously.”

But that’s only one of her daily chores. Kendra’s also responsible for weighing piglets to ensure they remain healthy, checking expectant mothers with an ultrasound and ensuring that any sows that have recently given birth are doing well.

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on April 24th, 2014 :: Filed under Agricultural Advocates,Animal care,animal handling,Education and public awareness,Pigs
Tags :: animal care, education, pigs

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By Lilian Schaer

(Auburn) They’re young, they’re educated and they’re passionate about their future as veal farmers in Ontario.

Tom Oudshoorn and his brother Paul raise about 2,000 grain-fed veal calves on their home farm in the Auburn area near Goderich and on a second farm near Kincardine, where Paul now lives. They were still in high school – Tom, age 14, and Paul, age 16, – when they started raising their first 20 calves after a barn had become empty on their family’s farm.

Both have since graduated from the agriculture program at the University of Guelph-Ridgetown Campus, with Tom finishing his diploma in June 2012, and are now full-time farmers keen to continue to expand their farming business.

“Every day is a bit different when you’re farming and I really like being my own boss,” explains Tom, adding both he and Paul enjoy making their own decisions, a benefit that comes with being self-employed. “As well, there are always ways you can improve and get better.”

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on February 10th, 2014 :: Filed under Animal care,Animal welfare,Farm life,Veal
Tags :: animal care, animals, Farm life, Farmers, Veal

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by Kelly Daynard

St. Marys - Farmers, by their very natures, are entrepreneurs, always looking for innovative new products to try on their farms or looking at new research to find better ways to care for their livestock and crops.

The Rankin family of St. Marys is a great example of that. In the 1920’s, Dow Rankin was a cheese maker who watched as his cousin became one of the first in Canada to farm mink. At the time, farm or ranch-raised mink was unheard-of. The demand, at the time, was for pelts from mink raised in the wild.

But the Depression brought with it a change in the market and ranch-raised mink began to increase in popularity. Dow started by buying three females (at a time when there were only 600 breeding female animals in all of Canada). By the time Dow’s son, Jim, returned home from college to farm in 1949, he had increased to a herd of 40 females with the herd size increasing significantly in the decades since.

 

Today, Jim is retired from the farm that is now managed by the third and fourth generations of his family to live and work there.

Jim’s son, Kirk, said that the path to a career as a third generation mink farmer was, for him, an indirect one. After high school, he pursued a career in forestry with a desire to be a game warden. Yet, when he met his future wife and farm girl Judi, he knew that he’d rather have a life with her in southern Ontario than one on his own in the north. He returned home to farm with his dad and is now thrilled to have sons Jamie and Curtis and nephew Steve working alongside him.

Farm responsibilities have been divided up according to the passions of each of the four.  Jamie enjoys managing the intricate art of creating feed rations which have to be changed and balanced depending on the animals’ age. Curtis studied mechanical engineering and spent a short time working at a car plant before his rural roots drew him home. Today’s he has a lot of responsibility for the care of their animals. Steve also tried an off-farm career before returning to the farm in 2004. He especially enjoys maintaining and operating the farm’s equipment.

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on February 7th, 2014 :: Filed under Animal care,animal handling,Faces of Farming,Fur farming
Tags :: animal care, animal welfare, Faces of Farming, fur farming, mink

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The following is a CattleFACS brochure reprinted with the permission of the Farm Animal Council of Saskatchewan.  (FACS represents the Saskatchewan livestock industry in advancing responsible animal care and handling practices in agriculture.)

Jean L Clavelle

CALVING: WHEN AND HOW TO HELP

The basis of a cow–calf enterprise is a healthy cow with a healthy nursing calf.  Knowing when and how to help is an important part of responsible calving management.

A cow or heifer is having difficulty when:
• the cow actively strains for 40 minutes with no progress
• 90 minutes have passed since the waterbag first appeared
• the legs emerge with the surface of the hooves pointing up
• only the head or tail emerges
• an uncalved cow is mothering another calf
• a cow has demonstrated greater than 5–6 hours of anxiety, e.g. walking about, tail extended, apparently looking for something

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Posted by FACS on February 3rd, 2014 :: Filed under Agriculture Education,Animal health,Beef cattle,Canada,Uncategorized,winter
Tags :: animal care, animal welfare, beef, cattle, dairy cattle, weather

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The following is a CattleFACS brochure reprinted with the permission of the Farm Animal Council of Saskatchewan.  (FACS represents the Saskatchewan livestock industry in advancing responsible animal care and handling practices in agriculture.)

Jean L Clavelle

Calf Scours Overview:

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1. The Importance of Colostrum

The major factor influencing survival of calves is the level of immunity at the onset of diarrhea. The calf must get colostrum! The level of immunity required for calves born and confined in a farm yard is much higher than for calves born and “mothered” out on the range.

2. Hypothermia:

Often calves that have “crashed” are hypothermic (low temperature). If calves feel cold, have no sucking reflex but are not dehydrated, these calves are probably too “cold.” This could be confirmed by taking their temperature with an inexpensive digital thermometer. Newborn calves with a temperature less than 35˚C (96˚F) are considered hypothermic and should be treated. They will not warm up on their own.  These calves must be “warmed up” before they will absorb fluids given orally.

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Posted by FACS on January 21st, 2014 :: Filed under Animal health,Beef cattle,Uncategorized,winter
Tags :: agriculture, animal care, beef, calf scours, cattle

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