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The true story of your Thanksgiving turkey

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.


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
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The end – A PIG’S TALE

Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.06.07

I left the Great Lakes packing plant on May 12 with four boxes of meat piled onto the back seat of my car. Piggy — my pig, the pig I had helped raise and care for — was packed inside those boxes.

Six months of his life, six months of my life, all reduced to four cardboard boxes on my back seat.


Posted by Admin on July 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Consumers, Farm life, Pork
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Reporter feels business end of electric prod

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.


Posted by Admin on July 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Meat/slaughter plants, Pork, Transportation
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The trouble with boars

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.


Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Education and public awareness, Farm life, Pork
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The milk machine

Luisa D’Amato, Waterloo Region Record, 02 Aug 2008

It’s Sandi’s turn to be milked.

She stands patiently in the barn, her pale-pink udder bulging between her long legs, as dairy farmer Terry Lebold wipes her teats with antibacterial solution and attaches four suction cups to them.

Within five minutes, about 20 litres of milk has been vacuumed out of her, the white liquid whirling through transparent plastic tubes. Lebold touches her hind flank lightly, disconnects the machine and quickly dips her teats in a reddish iodine solution to prevent infection.


Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Canada, Dairy cattle, Farm life, Veal
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The business of Eggs

Food For Thought looks at how we use hens as protein factories to produce an egg a day for our tables

By Luisa D’Amato, Waterloo Region Record, 05 Jul 2008

When you walk into the long, dimly lit barn where Gary West keeps 25,000 egg-laying hens, the first thing you notice is the sound.


Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Poultry
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HOG WILD

BY TOBI COHEN, OTTAWA SUN, 2003.06.22

Pulling up to Luc and Louise Secours’ Bainsville farm one would never guess it was home to as many as 6,000 piglets at any given time.
It’s located on a large chunk of property a kilometre or so east of their
family farm home which stands perched atop a small hill next door to their chicken coop along Concession 2 in tiny South Glengarry town.


Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Animal health, Consumers, Family vs factory farming, Housing, Innovation and technology, Pork, Regulations
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Pork Producer Defends Industry

BY MARY-ANN HENDRIKX, STRATHROY; The London Free Press, 10 Jun 2003

Dear Editor,
As a pork producer, I am ticked at the amount of misinformation and negativity that surrounds any news of my industry. Pigs had absolutely nothing to do with the Walkerton tragedy, yet people continue to link the two, and papers continue to print these quotes as if they have truth to them.


Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Letters to the Editor, Pork
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Youths looking forward to farming

LUKE HENDRY, Belleville INTELLIGENCER, August 25, 2008

Anyone who’s pessimistic about the future of farming hasn’t been here

As the Shannonville World’s Fair entered its second of three days, children and their calves were showing their stuff in the Future Farmers Calf Show.


Posted by Admin on July 19th, 2009 :: Filed under Education and public awareness, Farm life
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The real deal about veal

Jennifer Bain, Toronto Star, 2007.04.04

The real deal about veal; The Ontario Veal Association president opens her barn for a tour, encouraging butchers, supermarkets, chefs and consumers to learn more about this lean red meat

Ontario farmers want you to know how they do – and don’t – produce veal.


Posted by Admin on July 19th, 2009 :: Filed under Consumers, Education and public awareness, Housing, Veal
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