The following is a guest post written for us by Lilian from Food and Farming Canada.

Most of us have very little knowledge of where our food comes from or how it is produced. As a result, misinformation is widely circulated in many different forms – so to get to the real scoop on what’s going on, there’s no one better to ask than a farmer himself.

I had the chance recently to visit with Brent, who raises turkeys on his farm in south-western Ontario, and seized the opportunity to pepper him with questions about one of my favourite holiday meats, turkey.

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Posted by OFAC on May 26th, 2010 :: Filed under Animal care, Family vs factory farming, Farm life, Food safety, Poultry, Sustainability of the family farm
Tags :: animal welfare, antibiotics, corporate farming, food safety, Ontario, turkey

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January 6, 2010 – Happy New Year to the readers of this blog. This article was printed in the Toronto Star over the holiday season and we think this columnist got the issue exactly right. Farm animals aren’t pets and they definitely aren’t 4-legged people. And, with only 1 in every 46 Canadians now actively farming, there is a huge disconnect between farmers and consumers. Enjoy the read – OFAC

The annoying tendency to anthropomorphize animals is likely from our lost connection to rural life

by Connie Woodcock, Out There

Toronto Sun, December 20, 2009

When I was a little girl, I fell in love with a series of books about a pig named Freddy and his barnyard friends on the Bean farm in New York State.

I read every one of the 26 books available in my library over and over. I can remember peering at a New York road map in search of fictional Centerboro, the town supposedly nearest Freddy and his friends.

Written between the 1920s and 1950s, the Freddy books disappeared for a while but they were republished a few years ago and there’s even an association called The Friends of Freddy with its own website. I’ve bought several Freddy reprints and reread them still.

I mention this because much as I loved Freddy, Mrs, Wiggins the cow, Hank the horse with rheumatism in his hind leg, and Charles the henpecked rooster, we all grow up and realize there’s no such thing as a talking animal. At least, most of us do.

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Posted by OFAC on January 6th, 2010 :: Filed under Activism, Canada, Consumers, Education and public awareness, Farm life, Sustainability of the family farm
Tags :: activists, animal care, animal welfare, Canada, Consumers, Farmers, misconceptions, PETA

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With a growing interest in buying local, there has also been an increased interest by urban residents in growing their own foods and, in some cases, raising their own chickens for eggs. Here’s a fact sheet prepared by Egg Farmers of Ontario that gives you some tips to think about before you get a backyard flock of your own. – OFAC

Urban Egg Farmer: Top Ten List of Chores

There has been a growing interest in raising egg-laying hens in urban environments.

Properly taking care of chickens requires some physical adaptations to a typical backyard, a daily time
commitment to caring for your flock, a lot of preparation, and a great deal of expertise.

If you are considering having a backyard flock of your own, here is an example of a chore list you should expect.

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Posted by OFAC on December 24th, 2009 :: Filed under Animal health, backyard flocks, eggs
Tags :: animal welfare, eggs, free range

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If you’re involved in emergency response AFAC’s newly released video is for you. This 10 minute video, developed by the Alberta Farm Animal Care Association, is an overview of the highly successful Livestock Emergency Response Course.

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Posted by AFAC on October 15th, 2009 :: Filed under Transportation
Tags :: animal welfare, livestock, Transportation

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Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.06.06

The use of battery-powered electric prods to get hogs moving is a controversial animal welfare issue.

The prod is poked into the back or rump of the pig and with a push of a button, a flash of electric current jumps between two contacts. It’s enough to elicit a loud squeal in some pigs.

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Posted by Admin on July 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Meat/slaughter plants, Pork, Transportation
Tags :: animal welfare, economics, labeling, meat, Ontario, pigs, Pork

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Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.06.04

I’m playing a word game with Temple Grandin. It’s fascinating to hear her describe how her brain works.

Temple Grandin is a professor of livestock behaviour at Colorado State University. She also happens to be autistic.

You could make the case that she’s the world’s most highly functioning autistic person and I wouldn’t argue with that.

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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Family vs factory farming, Farm life, Housing, Pork
Tags :: animal welfare, beef, livestock, meat, pigs, Pork, slaughter

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Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.05.28

Six months, 250 pounds. That’s Piggy’s destiny in life.01 At first, he’ll double his weight in a few days, then it will double in a week, then every couple of weeks, then every month. It’s incredible, isn’t it, to think that a barnyard animal is capable of growing so large, so quickly.

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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Education and public awareness, Farm life, Pork
Tags :: animal welfare, artificial insemination, Farmers, meat, Ontario, pigs, Pork, Research

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For Immediate Release:

December 15, 2008

Memphis, Tenn. — In light of the Transportation Security Administration’s decision to allow advertising on the bins used at airport checkpoints in order to pay for security equipment upgrades, PETA has dispatched a letter to Larry D. Cox, president and CEO of Memphis International Airport (MEM).

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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Activism, Meat/slaughter plants
Tags :: activists, animal welfare, PETA

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Man’s Death From Bird Disease Prompt Action

For Immediate Release:
December 30, 2008

Phoenix — PETA, owner of 151 shares of PetSmart–the country’s largest pet food and supplies chain with more than 1,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada–has submitted a shareholder resolution calling on the Phoenix-based company to report on the feasibility of phasing out the sale of live animals.

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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Activism
Tags :: activists, animal welfare, PETA, pets

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Feedstuffs, (12/25/2008) ,
Rod Smith

The National Meat Assn. (NMA) has filed a lawsuit in a federal court in California seeking to overturn part of a California law passed this summer that bans the slaughter of non-ambulatory livestock for meat for human consumption, and the American Meat Institute (AMI) has moved to intervene in and broaden the action, according to an announcement yesterday.

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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Meat/slaughter plants, Regulations
Tags :: agriculture, animal welfare, animals, meat, regulation

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