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Better pork
August 2016
S
ome estimates have Canadian
hog farmers as much as a quar-
ter of the way through the com-
plicated and costly job of converting
confinement stalls to group housing
for gestating sows.
Nobody seems really to know how
much it will all cost, how quickly
it can happen or which of many
potential systems producers will
prefer. The March 2014 publica-
tion of the updated Code of Prac-
tice for the Care and Handling of
Pigs by the Canadian Pork Council
and National Farm Animal Care
Council drives the conversion effort.
Code terms require group housing
in new construction and encourage
producers to convert fully by 2024.
The councils introduced the change
to accommodate animal welfare
concerns about the confinement of
pregnant sows in stalls.
The change was controversial. A
year before the code was published,
Manitoba producer, Rick Berg-
mann, now Canadian Pork Council
chair, made a staunch public defense
of gestation stalls in a
National Post
article on the subject. But much has
changed since then, including high-
profile endorsements of group hous-
ing – known also as open or loose
housing – from some of the largest
hog processing firms in the world.
Stall options
Prairie Swine Centre ethologist Jen-
nifer Brown, who heads a national
project to disseminate group hous-
ing research, went out of her way
in a recent telephone interview
to play down suggestions the new
code compels a change. (Ethology
is the science of animal behaviour.)
She spoke from Saskatoon where
she teaches animal science at the
University of Saskatchewan and
emphasized code options that allow
continued stall use. The options
provide animals “the opportunity to
turn around and exercise periodical-
ly or other means that allow greater
freedom of movement,” she said.
The code promises written clarifica-
tion of those options by July 1, 2019;
the options will rely on prevailing
science.
“I know some people who are just
going to wait and see what periodic
exercise (one of the options) looks
like,” before proceeding to compli-
ance, Brown said.
In 2014, Brown secured a
$500,000 grant under the federal/
provincial, Growing Forward Two
program for producer education
about group housing. Producer
MAIN
FEATURE
CARI
The loose housing revolution:
conversion questions
As Ontario pork producers plan the switch to group
housing for sows, uncertainty lingers about overall cost,
protocols and the industry’s ability to meet the 2024
deadline.
by JIM ALGIE
“I know some people who
are just going to wait and see
what periodic exercise (one
of the options) looks like,”
says Jennifer Brown, Prairie
Swine Centre ethologist.