Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2021.06.07
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.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under
Canada,
Consumers,
Farm life,
PorkTags ::
Consumers,
Farmers,
Media,
Ontario,
pigs,
Pork
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2021.06.06
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.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under
Meat/slaughter plants,
Pork,
TransportationTags ::
animal welfare,
economics,
labeling,
meat,
Ontario,
pigs,
Pork
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator,2008.06.06
It’s Friday, May 9. I didn’t need my alarm clock this morning. I was wide awake by 4 a.m.
I admit that I was a little apprehensive. This is Piggy’s last day. This morning, he’s being shipped from the Littlejohns’ farm in the hamlet of Glen Morris to Great Lakes Specialty Meats, a small packing plant in Mitchell, about half an hour north of London.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Farm life,
Meat/slaughter plants,
Pork,
TransportationTags ::
Farmers,
meat,
pigs,
Pork,
slaughter,
Transportation
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2021.06.04
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.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Education and public awareness,
Family vs factory farming,
Farm life,
Housing,
PorkTags ::
animal welfare,
beef,
livestock,
meat,
pigs,
Pork,
slaughter
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2021.05.30
It’s 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 21, and it’s one of the coldest mornings of the winter so far. The snow crunches under foot, there’s just a hint of grey light along the eastern horizon and an icy mist rises off the nearby Grand River.
Two gleaming silver tanker trucks from the Wallenstein feed company have already started emptying their loads into the metal silos at Curtiss Littlejohn’s pig farm in the hamlet of Glen Morris.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Canada,
Family vs factory farming,
Farm life,
Innovation and technology,
PorkTags ::
agriculture,
antibiotics,
Biosecurity,
environment,
feed,
fuel,
hormones,
misconceptions,
nutrition,
Research,
technology
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2021.05.28
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.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Canada,
Education and public awareness,
Farm life,
PorkTags ::
animal welfare,
artificial insemination,
Farmers,
meat,
Ontario,
pigs,
Pork,
Research
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2021.05.27
It’s 6:30 on a Sunday morning and daylight hasn’t yet cracked the horizon as I head west along Governor’s Road on the far side of Lynden. I drive for miles without passing another car, but almost every barn I pass is already lit.
No one has said it better than John Kenneth Galbraith, the renowned economist and maybe the most famous graduate of the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Canada,
Farm life,
PorkTags ::
Canada,
Farmers,
pigs,
Pork
Luisa D’Amato, Waterloo Region Record, 02 Aug 2021
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.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Canada,
Dairy cattle,
Farm life,
VealTags ::
agriculture,
Canada,
Consumers,
dairy cattle,
Farmers,
food,
milk,
Ontario
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 2021
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.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Education and public awareness,
PoultryTags ::
eggs,
Farmers,
free range,
Ontario,
Poultry
Manitoba Co-operator, 2/14/2009
A ranchers’ beef co-operative in Alberta and Saskatchewan has picked up certification from a U.S. group for meeting a long list of social and environmental standards for their product.
Food Alliance Certification Co-operative, based in Portland, Ore., has given Prairie Heritage Producers its certification for “sustainably-produced” beef. Prairie Heritage becomes the first company in Canada to meet Food Alliance standards, the U.S. group said Friday.
Read All »
Posted by FFC on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Beef cattle,
Canada,
ConsumersTags ::
animal care,
beef,
Canada,
environment,
Farmers,
humane treatment,
sustainability,
water conservation
