Cover Story, Part 1: The transformation that is underway in Ontario's farm buildings
Monday, August 5, 2013
From loose housing for sows to new caging solutions for hens and free-stall barns for cattle, changes brought on by animal welfare expectations are in the works on many Ontario farms. And some wonder who is going to pay
by MARY BAXTER
From the 2008 market crash to his 2009 decision to replace market hog production with feeder pigs, Doug Ahrens has navigated his Perth County hog farm operation through plenty of rough waters. This year, he's bearing down on one of his greatest challenges yet – acclimatizing his sow herd to a spanking new loose housing barn complete with five electronic feeders and a 7,000-square-foot pen.
After he introduced the first group of sows to the barn in April, Ahrens was pulling 20-hour workdays to help them adapt. There have been so many challenges – pigs' toenails that have broken off, animals not accustomed to so much walking becoming stiff, or slipping while facing the new situation of defending against other animals. Then there are the sows, about four per cent, that either won't take to the new feeder or suddenly quit using it for no apparent reason.
"We're going to have some casualties, there's no doubt about it," says Ahrens quietly and seriously over the phone on a late May Tuesday afternoon.
So why is this veteran hog producer setting up a barn system so different from its predecessor that it's causing his animals short-term hardship?
"I don't think it's rocket science to see what's happening," says Ahrens, referring to sweeping animal welfare changes governing the housing and treatment of pigs that have taken place in the European Union and the United States.
Here in Canada, its effects could be felt in the June release by the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) of its draft code of practice for the care and handling of pigs. The draft code calls for, amongst many other things, all mated gilts and sows to be placed in group housing by 2024. Until this year, the industry standard had been to house the animals in gestation stalls to protect them from aggression from other animals. Group housing is preferred, the draft code says, because the stalls cause the animals stress.
The uncertain future of gestation stalls is not really why construction of pig barns has fallen off in the province in recent years. Blame Ontario's aging hog barn stock instead on the economic turmoil in the pig industry. But with draft standards the producers can now refer to, construction could pick up. Loose housing capacity for sows is low in the province. "It's certainly not above 50 per cent in terms of total number of sows," says Robert Chambers, an engineer with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) who specializes in swine production infrastructure.
A handful of producers, like Ahrens, anticipated changes in the code of practice and have already begun erecting loose housing facilities for their pregnant sows, says Dan Reymer, a partner in Middlesex Concrete Forming Ltd. north of Strathroy. "A lot of those guys are Dutch farmers," he says. They've already experienced animal welfare-based changes in Europe and are using European regulations as a guide.
Sow barns are not the only type of farm buildings affected by new expectations for the treatment of animals. Infrastructure for all of the main livestock commodities is also feeling the impact. Sometimes the changes create positive spinoff effects, such as increased production. Sometimes they generate increased expenses, logistical headaches and unpleasant surprises. And, sometimes, new technology and processes give rise to gains in animal comfort that no one anticipated.
Ahrens is confident that, once he makes it through the short-term impact, the problems will ease and the new facility will perform at a level similar to his old system. Research has shown that, although electronic feeders might require more vigilance on the part of the operator to ensure transponders are working, sows' production becomes equal to or greater than those housed in stalls.
So far, about half of his 600 sows have been acclimatized to the new facility. Along with the feeders, the barn features laying areas. "They have all their little cubbyholes that they can lay in, so there is no closed penning in it."
The feeders are a far cry from the troughs he used in the sow system in which he could feed 350 sows in less than a minute. "These 300 sows are going to take all 24 hours to do because it takes about 15 to 20 minutes for each sow to go through a station and eat her portion," he explains.
The system eases the aggression that can happen in conventional systems where sows might compete for food. It also means each animal gets her fair share. Ahrens has already noticed an improvement in piglet size.
The barn has been expensive, an estimated $1,000 per sow space. The figure doesn't include lost productivity while training the existing herd. Neither does it address the likelihood of a shortened life expectancy for some of the animals, despite his efforts to train them in the system in smaller groups before allowing them to move into the large pen. He hopes to reduce the adjustment challenges by eventually introducing an electronic feeder into his gilt barn to get them used to it.
Interviewed before the NFACC draft pig code release, Ahrens wasn't sure if his operation would meet the code's standards. He's also not sure how well he would be able to adjust the barn if new requirements come into play. "It's pretty tough to build a specialized barn and be flexible. To be flexible, it's going to cost you a lot more money." If natural light becomes a requirement, he could knock out walls. "You can only plan for what you know."
Egg industry cautious
As Ontario's egg industry faces mounting public concerns about traditional caging systems, they are approaching the transition cautiously. One big challenge they've encountered is that new caging solutions mean having to train birds to use them.
Leanne Cooley is a poultry nutrition and welfare specialist with Ontario's second-largest egg grader, L.H. Gray & Son Limited in Strathroy. The company has recently established three new aviary barns in southwestern Ontario. The barns feature loose housing, something that already exists in the industry to serve a higher-priced niche egg market. Where the aviary barns differ is in their greater use of vertical space by incorporating terraced systems. In the system, the barn floor is a litter environment. Above are areas where birds can perch, nest and obtain food and water. "Aviaries work with the natural behaviour of birds," Cooley says.
The company first built a barn for pullets (young birds) two years ago. You can't just put regular pullets into aviary housing systems and expect them to be successful, Cooley explains. "Aviary pullets learn to perch, jump and fly; they build strong bones and muscles; they also learn how to navigate these complex three dimensional environments." While there are methods to train the birds in existing barns, they don't necessarily teach the birds to take to their perches at night, which Cooley says is key to encouraging the birds to lay eggs in their nest box rather than on the barn floor.
The two other barns for mature laying hens have gone into production more recently and are now housing their first flocks.
Cooley notes that the aviary system could have been introduced into existing barns, but the company wanted to construct new facilities to explore how other new technologies could perform. Some of these are energy-saving systems, such as the introduction of LED lighting and energy-efficient ventilation. "We have a very energy-efficient ventilation system designed that incorporates a ducting system as well as some high-pressure variable speed fans. We work with very energy-efficient radiant hot water heat in the rearing facility," Cooley says. "What we did was focus on how we could maximize the air quality in the barn using as little fan power as possible."
The barns are constructed to meet international laying hen standards and cost more than conventional barns. So they should, Cooley says. Canada's current layer hen code of practice calls for 1.02 square feet per bird in loose housing; other international code recommendations call for 1.2 square feet, not including nest space. Infrastructure investment to accommodate the added space therefore is going to be proportionately higher.
Enriched or furnished cages work on a similar principle to aviary housing on a smaller scale. The cages take into account the four main natural behaviours of the hens. They include a nest box to address the birds' desire for an enclosed space with a different surface to lay an egg; there are perches for rest and to help build bone strength.
These cages are now a requirement in the European Union and there is a proposal to phase them in over the next several years in the United States, as well as introduce new stocking densities.
In Canada, there are some producers who are already switching, but the cages are not mandatory here, Cooley says. The industry is concerned about the impact of an abrupt transition. It has already embraced some significant changes, she explains, referring to the 2009 industry-wide adoption of a mandatory cage density of 67 square inches per white hen. That same year, it also embraced a HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control point system) on-farm food safety program. The changes meant "quite extensive infrastructure investments," she says. To undertake yet another equipment investment a handful of years later "would be very tough for a lot of farmers to do financially."
Premium scoffed at
Many wonder who should pay for costly infrastructure changes that respond to a shift in broad social values. Ahrens recently approached a couple of processors with the idea of selling his animals for a premium because of his new loose sow housing. "They both laughed at me."
Crystal Mackay, executive director of Farm & Food Care Ontario, which works to foster understanding about farm issues beyond the farm gate, makes a case for paying premiums. Making social demands on farms through the value chain but still buying food products at commodity prices "just doesn't make economic sense," she says.
Yet government support is needed as well to assist sectors in making infrastructure transitions and to invest in research to determine the best methods. Such changes "shouldn't be up to a marketing guy," she says. "We need the solid science, which includes third-party research."
There may also be a case to be made for establishing a "made in Canada" pricing model for food "if we are going to put a social value on feeding our country, which is much bigger than animal welfare," she says.
In 2010, Chris Freiburger added a new barn to his finishing beef feedlot in Bruce County west of Walkerton. It was an expansion to his existing three-barn facility and the build was motivated in part by a former client requiring GAP (Global Animal Partnership) certification of his operation.
The certification, which he still holds, did not require many changes to the overall building design but rather allocated greater square footage per animal as well as more "bunk" space (room at the feed trough so animals can feed at the same time) and a greater water bowl area. The space requirements for the animals meant that Freiburger had to halve the number of cattle he could feed. (He has the capacity to finish 1,000 cattle at normal stocking densities.) "So it becomes a real issue with economics obviously" to add the infrastructure, he says.
In his case, the customer paid a premium and also absorbed the cost of certification. That's the way he believes arrangements should be made. "Make sure you are going to get paid for it," he advises. "Maybe it's not financial, but it's got to be some kind of reward."
Paying for itself
For the McLaren family's dairy operation in Richwood, Oxford County, there won't be an opportunity to charge a premium to recoup the costs of a new barn where cow comfort has been a goal. But Chris McLaren is convinced the new structure is paying for itself by improving production and cow health.
The McLarens added the barn in February 2012. The 150-cow free-stall barn was a big change from their former tie-stall barn, where "the newest part was 40-plus years old," McLaren says.
McLaren knew that tie stalls had been widely criticized for detracting from cows' quality of life. Worldwide, there has been a strong push to phase them out. In Ontario, they've become a thing of the past in most large barns but persist in smaller operations. Harold House, an OMAF engineer who specializes in dairy and beef production infrastructure, estimates that while about 80 per cent of the province's dairy cows are housed in free-stall housing, 80 per cent of the province's dairy barns remain tie-stall.
What McLaren liked about tie-stalls was the ability to easily manage individual animals. So he dedicated nearly a quarter of the new barn's roughly 30,000 square feet to a network of pens that could be used in various ways. The area includes room to breed and treat the animals, a large pen that can be used for animals getting ready to calve, two smaller pens for calving and small milk feeding stalls for calves.
"You want to deal with them before they have the calf, as they are calving, and post-calving. That's the most critical point of a cow's life, so I spent a lot of time trying to design a facility that made it easy for us to handle those animals and made it comfortable for the cows during that time of their life."
He has also situated the barn on a rise to ensure that there is plenty of ventilation. Brushes were added as well as cushioning non-slip rubber in the milking parlour and holding area. Calves are conventionally housed adjacent to the barn in hutches.
The younger group of cattle responded right away to the new barn, he says, noting that the family has raised their heifers in free stalls for years, so there was not much of a transition for them. The older cattle responded about a month later. By then, milk production was up 25 per cent.
Better ventilation means milk production doesn't go down in the hotter summer months. Somatic cell counts have dropped. The monitoring technology makes it easier to flag animals that might be sick and provide earlier treatment. "The overall health of the herd is better," he says.
Despite its cow comfort focus, McLaren worries the barn could generate criticism. There's the risk that people might see a facility like his and think confined cows are uncomfortable cows. "But in reality the cows can be as comfortable as in another system."
That's certainly the case in the barn on an early June evening as milking winds down. The wall coverings are removed so there are few obstructions to the cooling evening air or the remarkable view of the rise and fall of the rural landscape.
The animals chew quietly on generous portions of feed. The only sounds are the sighs of the milkers' air compressors releasing their pressure and a radio playing in the background. As McLaren walks up the centre aisle to pose for a photograph, he's asked if a flash will startle the animals.
"A flash," he repeats and looks mildly surprised. He shakes his head.
Moments later, he describes the arrival of a truck a week earlier. Its tailgate had suddenly slammed after it delivered its load. The sound ricocheted through the barn.
His cows didn't even react. BF
SIDEBAR: What constitutes a good life for farm animals?
Nearly 60 years after Jane Goodall focused her attention on chimps in the wild, and particularly over the past decade, the question of what constitutes a good life for farm animals has become an issue that pits people against each other and threatens the viability of production agriculture.
In a 2012 recorded presentation to students with the University of British Columbia's faculty of land and food systems, David Fraser, the university's NSERC industrial research chair in animal welfare, explains that the conflict began in the 1960s when the rise of indoor production agriculture occurred at the same time that animal welfare advocacy began to grow.
In production agriculture and the science that supported it, animal welfare was interpreted to mean ensuring the animals' basic health and functioning.
Goodall's research in the 1960s and 1970s, on the other hand, brought recognition that animals share many of our affective states, such as pain, pleasure, suffering and happiness. Arguments were evolving as well about the importance of allowing animals the ability to behave as they would in their natural environment.
The debate between the three different views on what constituted a good life for farm animals created a new area of scientific specialization and, as animal welfare science research began, there was an expectation it would "get rid of these different value-based beliefs," Fraser says.
Instead, value-based views formed the basis of different scientific approaches. "It enriched the science," but did not eliminate the value-based assumptions, he says.
Fraser maintains that a definition of a good life for animals would combine aspects of all three views: "If they are healthy and thriving without distortions that enhance one aspect of biological functioning to the detriment of another; if they can use their natural adaptations in ways that they would choose to do; and if the animals can enjoy life, and if negative states are not so severe or prolonged as to constitute suffering." BF
SIDEBAR: Examining the effects of different stocking densities on layers
Shifting not only to enriched cages but also lower stocking densities is posing a challenge for egg producers.
"If you double the space allowance for birds and then want to produce the same amount of eggs, you have to double the number of barns," notes Tina Widowski, director of the University of Guelph's Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare.
In the United States, egg producers plan to double the amount of space allocated to one bird to 124 inches by 2029. In European countries that still allow cages (they are banned in Germany and the Netherlands), the space allocation per bird is 116 inches.
In Canada, the space currently allocated to caged layer hens is 67 inches. It's expected that the industry will eventually lower its densities in increments.
To date, however, "no one has ever looked at what happens when you keep 60 birds in a cage with a lower space allowance than what's in the European Union," notes Widowski.
To fill in the gap, Widowski and other University of Guelph researchers are looking at two different stocking densities – 80 square inches per bird and 116 square inches per bird – in different types of enriched cages (cages with enhancements such as perches, enclosed nests and scratch mats) to see how the birds fare.
"We tracked production, feed intake – all the parameters that producers, in particular, need to know about – and we tracked also a large number of welfare parameters," Widowski says. She uses as examples feather condition, mortality and health. "We've also looked at some of the behavioural parameters," such as foraging and perching.
"One of the notions is that you can give them these furnishings, but are they actually using them?" she says.
There are many designs for the new cages now available. "Some of them work better than others," she says, "so part of our task is to assess if the birds use them and if they're well designed for that." They have found no significant difference.
The study wraps up in October. So far they found birds to be a little dirtier and have poorer feather scores at the higher density level. There was a little bit of difference in foraging and dust bathing behaviours, "but not a lot." BF
SIDEBAR: Heat exchangers – a win-win for the farmer and the birds
They say what's old becomes new again and that concept is certainly true when it comes to the use of heat exchangers in poultry barns. But don't confuse the type of heat exchangers available in today's market with those available some years ago, warns Daniel Ward, an engineer with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food who specializes in poultry livestock housing and equipment.
"The technology now – the fan controls and the ventilation controls and the type of motors that they're using in these fans – has improved so much that they're able to do a better job of managing it," he says.
Heat exchangers use the dirty warm air exhaust from a barn to warm fresh air that comes in. Energy conservation initially drove interest in this technology, which keeps temperatures level using less heat.
The technology is also revolutionizing poultry comfort. Barns are drier, explains Ward, and that leads to fewer burns on birds' feet caused by the combination of wet litter and ammonia.
Air and litter quality is one of a number of issues that the National Farm Animal Care Council's 22-member chickens, turkeys and breeders code development committee has identified as a priority for its code update. Work on the update began in 2011.
Many of the new technologies come from Europe and, late last year, the Schroeders family, who farm broiler chickens, pigs and cash crops near Exeter in Huron County, added a system that they had acquired from a Dutch manufacturer to a new barn they were building. Jos Schroeders says their goal was to make the 27,000-square-foot building as energy-efficient as possible and make the birds more comfortable.
"It's a win-win for the farmer and the birds," says his brother Eric.
The exchangers were initially designed to be used in retrofits and the equipment sits in separate small structures adjacent to the barn. The family installed two exchangers.
By early June, the brothers had introduced their fourth crop of birds. The birds' feet are cleaner, as are their breasts, Jos says. They have had fewer condemnations. The birds appear more comfortable, expressed in the way they spread out evenly in the barn.
Jos and Eric are involved in a joint venture with a local equipment supplier to promote the exchanger. They say interest is strong. So far, systems are being added to two new barn builds and a retrofit. There have been a number of inquiries. BF
SIDEBAR: Working towards improvements in dairy cow comfort
Harold House, an Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food engineer who specializes in dairy and beef production infrastructure, notes that cow comfort improvements in the dairy industry have been gradual but steady. "Things aren't stagnant; they're always working towards improvement, especially with base and bedding for cows."
Some improvements – sand for bedding, for example – generate other problems such as challenges in handling manure, but often there are synergies between innovations and cow comfort. Bedding is a secondary product from anaerobic digestion, a process that has been introduced to a number of dairy farms in Ontario. More ready access to renewable bedding means, in turn, more bedding for cows, which leads to improved comfort.
Small changes, such as the introduction of transponders that allow the digital communication about cow details, work with other innovations, like non-slip flooring, and changes in lighting and ventilation to improve the cows' welfare bottom line.
Research is also showing that free-choice feeding and group housing for calves improves their performance. Robotic milking for cows which allows them to pick their own cycle also increases their comfort, House says. BF