The HyLife weaning ramp developed at the HyLife sow farms in La Broquerie, Man. was honoured earlier this year at the Banff Pork Seminar, and received the stamp of approval from renowned animal behaviourist Dr. Temple Grandin.

“This innovative system should be in every sow farm for vaccinating weaned piglets,” Grandin said after touring HyLife facilities. “I can’t say enough good things about it. It should go industry-wide. I was amazed how well those little pigs used the ramp; that’s the kind of stuff that makes handling easier.”

Grandin is widely considered a leading expert in her field, and as part of HyLife’s ongoing commitment to animal welfare, the company recently engaged the author and professor of animal science. She travelled to Canada to extensively tour operations, including HyLife farms and a processing plant in Neepawa, Man. During her evaluation, Grandin paid close attention to animal handling practices and said she was impressed with the uniqueness of the HyLife ramp.

“It gets rid of the back-breaking work. It’s also going to improve good treatment of the pigs as the job is so much easier. And you make a job easier, and people are going to like it a whole lot better. That is something the whole industry should have.”

A group effort

The ramp was created by HyLife’s Continuous Improvement Team, a group of engineers dedicated to solving challenges while improving animal welfare. After listening to farm employees, it was discovered that picking up piglets and bringing them to the employee performing vaccination placed a strain on both the staff and animals. The typical process at HyLife involved picking up piglets, giving them a vaccination and separating by gender.

Repeatedly collecting and picking up piglets places strain on a worker’s body, especially their back and arms, as most piglets are five kilograms or heavier. The innovative weaning ramp eliminates the need to pick piglets off the floor.

“We knew there was a better way,” said Lyle Loewen, senior vice-president of Farms Division, HyLife. “We prioritize animal care and lean on our in-house experts and CI team to develop a creative solution. The result is a ramp that eliminates the need to pick up piglets. This means less stress and more safety for both our animals and employees.”

A smart design

The innovative ramp works as follows:

1. Piglets enter the alleyway and toward the ramp.
2. Piglets move up the ramp in groups.
3. Once up the ramp, a gate using a pulley system is lowered. Employees can easily begin picking the piglets from waist height to be vaccinated. The animals are then gently placed on a slide, depending on their sex.
4. Gradual sloping slides off each side of the station, bring the piglet back down slowly and safely to ground level.

The labour-saving design received a further accolade when it was named winner of The Dr. F.X Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production at the 2023 Banff Pork Seminar. The prestigious award honours an original solution to pork production challenges in North America.

“This is a proud day for HyLife. The ramp project is an example of how we collectively prioritize animal welfare,” Loewen said. “Receiving top honours on a national stage and Dr. Grandin’s endorsement of the concept, design, and execution reaffirms our efforts.”

HyLife is now investing in the ramps across all sow barns and continues to look for creative ways to improve animal care and employee safety.

HyLife employees Robert Lafrenière and Barak Doell, key contributors to the development of the weaning ramp were in Banff to accept the award presented at Banff Pork Seminar

“Each year our committee is impressed by the innovation of people in our industry who enter the competition,” said awards committee chair Ben Willing. “The award comes with financial reward in the form of a ticket to the seminar for two people and support for travel costs to attend.

“However, the biggest prize for many is the recognition by industry peers. This is a solid example of the goals of this competition,” Willing said. “Grassroots innovation built with team support and an idea that helps others in the industry in their daily work. Frank Aherne, who was a professor at the University of Alberta and a major force for science-based progress in the Canadian pork industry, would be proud.”

The Banff Pork Seminar is co-ordinated by the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, in co-operation with Alberta Pork, Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation and other pork industry representatives from across Canada.

HyLife is a fully integrated producer of premium pork. The company operates feed, barn, fleet, and pork plant operations in Canada, U.S., and Mexico employing more than 4,000 people. While they produce pork, the company says their mission is “to take care of our communities, animals, employees, and customers.”

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StatsCan on Monday reported 11.2 million cattle on Canadian farms at Jan, 1, 2021 — down one per cent from the year-earlier date and 25.3 per cent off the herd’s last peak at Jan. 1, 2005. The herd was spread across 71,330 farms, down 1.8 per cent from Jan. 1, 2020.

The overall cattle count takes into account a 1.7 decrease in the herd in Western Canada, to 8.2 million head, as well as a 0.9 per cent increase in the East, to 2.9 million head.

The calf count on Jan. 1 was down 1.1 per cent on the year at 3.7 million head, including a 3.5 per cent drop in births over the July-to-December period compared to the same stretch in 2019. Feeder heifers were down 4.5 per cent and steers 4.2 per cent on the year.

Total slaughter of cattle and calves from July through December 2020 was up 0.6 per cent from the same stretch in 2019. In 2020, StatsCan said, “processing plants adapted their operations to increase processing capacity and reduce existing backlogs.”

The cattle slaughter pace in 2020 ran notably higher during the summer months, which “typically experience seasonal slowdowns.”

Canada’s exports of cattle and calves, at 303,000 head, were down two per cent in the latter half of 2020 compared to the year-earlier period, as U.S. processing plants also ran up against backlogs of slaughter cattle due to COVID-19.

StatsCan said the Canadian dairy herd has remained “fairly stable” since the start of 2018, sitting at 1.4 million cows and heifers as of Jan. 1, 2021.

Hogs

As of Jan. 1 this year, Canada’s hog herd was reported at 14 million head, up 0.4 per cent from Jan. 1, 2020 and 11.2 per cent from a decade earlier, StatsCan said. The herd was spread across 7,575 farms, down 0.8 per cent.

Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba had the largest hog inventories as of Jan. 1 with Quebec at 4.3 million, Ontario at 3.7 million and Manitoba at 3.3 million.

Canadian farms reported 1.2 million sows and gilts, up one per cent on the year, while the number of boars remained “virtually unchanged,” StatsCan said.

Slaughter over the July-to-December period of 2020, at 11.5 million head, was up 4.2 per cent on the year, reaching its highest level since Jan. 1, 2005. Exports during that period ran at 2.8 million hogs, up 10.1 per cent from the year-earlier period, on demand from the U.S. for weaner pigs and higher export demand for pork, particularly from China.

Sheep

Flocks of sheep and lambs in Canada as of Jan. 1 this year were at their lowest inventory levels since Jan. 1, 1999, StatsCan said. At 780,200 head, the sheep herd was down two per cent from the same point in 2020.

The sheep breeding herd fell one per cent year-over-year to 580,800 head, mainly on reductions in the number of ewes and rams. The number of market lambs fell 4.8 per cent over 2020, to 199,400 head, while lamb slaughter rose 2.6 per cent, to 336,200 head.

Exports of sheep and lambs fell to 3,100 head during 2020, while imports of live animals totalled 8,400 head, the highest level for the Jan. 1 date since 2015, StatsCan said. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Alberta Pork, the province’s hog producer commission, and the provincial government on Tuesday announced an outbreak of the viral disease at what was described as a “400-head hog operation.”

Javier Bahamon, quality assurance and production manager for Alberta Pork, told Alberta Farmer on Tuesday that the outbreak was discovered last Thursday (Jan. 3) on a farrow-to-finish operation and was reported to the provincial ag department by a private veterinarian.

The barn in question has been “contained,” he said, and other producers in the area have been notified. No other information was immediately available Tuesday on the general location of the property.

The porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) is a coronavirus which, once introduced in a herd, causes vomiting, watery diarrhea and dehydration in infected animals. Mortality rates run up to 100 per cent in infected nursing-age piglets but are much lower in growing hogs, which generally present with milder diarrhea.

Alberta Pork emphasized in a release Tuesday the disease poses no risk to people or other animals and pork products remain safe for consumption.

The provincial ag ministry said in a separate statement it doesn’t expect to see any “market access implications” for Alberta hogs or pork as a result of the new finding.

All that said, “any sudden onset of unusual diarrhea should be investigated immediately by a veterinarian,” the province said.

PEDv is known to spread via the “fecal-oral” route, most commonly through infected feces coming onto farms on “various surfaces” that can carry and transmit the virus, Alberta Pork said.

Biosecurity protocols are of “utmost importance” to curb further impact, Alberta Pork said. “It is especially critical during this outbreak that producers consider enhancing biosecurity on-farm and in animal transportation.”

Producers “are encouraged to submit all swine manifests, including farm-to-farm movements, in a timely manner” and off-farm destinations such as abattoirs “should be considered as a potential source for bringing disease to your herd.”

Alberta had guarded its PED-free status since before the disease first appeared in the Canadian hog herd, on a hog farm in southern Ontario in early 2014. The disease was confirmed in the U.S. in May 2013 and Alberta declared PED a provincially reportable disease the following Jan. 20.

Alberta’s surveillance turned up an environmental sample of PEDv in an “office space” at a hog handling facility later that fall, but the disease hadn’t appeared in hogs anywhere in Alberta until now.

Since the disease’s first appearance there, Ontario has confirmed outbreaks at 117 hog farms, most recently on Dec. 20, 2018 at a farrow-to-weaning operation in Perth County.

PEDv also turned up in hogs in Manitoba in 2014 and has appeared in 107 on-farm outbreaks in Manitoba, nearly all in the province’s southeast, most recently at a finisher barn on Dec. 28, 2018.

Quebec has reported 16 outbreaks since 2014, most recently in the Centre-du-Quebec region in April 2015 but mainly in the Monteregie. Prince Edward Island reported one outbreak in 2015. Saskatchewan has turned up environmental samples of PEDv, but no cases in hogs to date. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The 18 piglets and two sows were rescued after an electrical fault set hay on fire at a farm in Milton Lilbourne, 110 km west of London, in February.

And when the pigs were slaughtered, farmer Rachel Rivers said it was appropriate to give the firefighters some of the sausages to show her appreciation.

“I’m sure vegetarians will hate this,” Rivers told the BBC, explaining that farming was her way of life.

“I wanted to thank them. I promised them at the time I’d bring down some sausages for them, which they were all pleased about.”

A spokesman for the fire service said the sausages were “fantastic” and thanked Rivers for her generosity.

— Reporting for Reuters by Alistair Smout.

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Janz, a barn manager for Maple Leaf in Zhoda, Man., has developed what he calls a “piglet arm” after seeing the need for a better way to process baby piglets. In barns where thousands of baby pigs are handled each year, employees were suffering repetitive stress and strain injuries as a result of performing piglet processing tasks. And hand holding squirming piglets is stressful on the animals too.

His “piglet processing arm” invention gently and safely holds the animal and allows it to be pivoted and rotated during the handling process. This makes the processing of piglets a safer task by eliminating the potential for repetitive stress and strain injuries on the employees. For the invention, Janz was awarded the 2014 F. X. Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production by the Banff Pork Seminar.

The design of the piglet arm is simple, constructed out of six simple, standardized, easy-to-source, low-cost parts.

A universal joint similar to what is used on power takeoff shafts on tractors serves as the basis for the device. A holding plate to cradle the piglets is attached to the top of the joint and the whole unit is mounted on the processing cart. Foam inserts on the holding plate cradle the piglet and a Velcro strap easily holds the piglet in place.

The processing arm attaches to a processing cart, and can be adjusted for employee height and used easily by both right- and left-handed people.

With this new tool, processing tasks such as injections, tattooing, castrating, tail docking and oral drenching can now all be done with the piglet in the cradle by simply swivelling the arm to the correct position. Since the piglet can be processed without being held and squeezed by staff, there is less stress on the animal and far less repetitive stress on the staff.

The arm is now used by 40 people in 20 barns across the Maple Leaf system and will be used on approximately 1.5 million piglets annually.

From the Manitoba Co-operator website: Mechanical processing arm receives award

As well, Maple Leaf is now manufacturing new custom-designed carts for their barns with two arms. Use of the carts will be a mandatory part of operating procedures because they are seen as an important opportunity to improve injury prevention.

“Innovation is the lifeblood of any industry and the F. X. Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production is an opportunity to recognize those individuals who have developed either original solutions to pork production challenges or creative uses of known technology,” says Dr. Michael Dyck of the University of Alberta, chair of the F. X. Aherne prize committee.

The award is named after the late Dr. Frank Aherne, a professor of swine nutrition and production at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and a major force for science-based progress in the western Canadian pork industry.

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