Making an IMPACT

“Good, better, best: never let them rest, until the good is better and the better is best.” While it’s not clear who said this originally, it certainly applies to a new initiative that has been developing in the livestock industry in Ontario.

It’s called IMPACT – Innovative Management and Practical Animal Care Training – a $2 million Growing Forward II program being administered through Farm and Food Care Ontario that promises to develop practical educational and training resources to help improve farm animal care.

Taking the good, making it better, striving to be the best:  in other words, making an IMPACT.

“Everyone is sick of acronyms but this one actually tells what we’re doing,” project Lead and poultry veterinarian Mike Petrik told delegates at a two-day kick off event in Cambridge, Ont. in February 2015. At 10 months into the two-year project, Petrik was there to explain the IMPACT program to industry leaders from all animal agriculture sectors, from dairy, poultry, swine, sheep, goats and rabbits to alternative livestock.

“Anyone who is in contact with animals can improve welfare,” said Petrik, who also holds a master’s degree in Animal Welfare. The IMPACT program is being developed in answer to public concerns, to pro-actively offer standardized training in animal care that will recognize livestock caregivers as professionals in their fields while keeping everyone from veterinarians and farmers to truckers and handlers up to date with the latest standards and developments.  

DEVELOPING IMPACT
Jackie Wepruk is the general manager with the National Farm Animal Care Council. Since all IMPACT materials will be developed with information based upon available National Codes of Practice, Wepruk sees the IMPACT program as a great way to get the National Codes into Provincial hands.  

Wepruk said, “A lot of blood, sweat and tears go into developing the Codes,”  which were originally designed in the early ‘80s as extension tools and are now used as reference material for regulations and as a foundation for on-farm assessment programs.

The Codes of Practice are all developed by consensus, bringing groups to the table that may not normally talk to each other. Wepruk is often asked why humane societies join producers and researchers in discussions? “Diverse groups feel like they’re on opposite sides of the table,” Wepruk explained, but she finds that, as talks unfold, they find common ground and build trust and find resolutions. “It’s far better to have everyone in the room,” she says, “and the learning goes both ways.”

The code for chicken, turkeys and broiler breeders (generally referred to as the “meat” bird code) is currently being updated, as is the code for laying hens. Both are expected in 2016. The IMPACT program funding will have run out by that time but Petrik projects that opportunities will be created for program templates to be incorporated into future resources.  

TEACHING ADULT LEARNERS
It’s been a long time since many of us sat in a classroom or took a course, and teaching adults poses it’s own challenges. Sarah Probst-Miller is a veterinarian and training specialist. As president of AgCreate Solutions Inc. she has been developing IMPACT lessons on pain control and procedures for pig, dairy, and cattle so far and will possibly do so for sheep and goats.

Probst-Miller explained that around the age of 25 the learning brain shifts to the adult world, where everything is questioned and needs direct application to be relevant. “What’s important changes,” she told conference delegates, and that makes adults more difficult to teach, something that had to be kept in mind when developing programs.

The delivery format of the program is also important. When we read something we may retain 10 per cent of the information. We retain 20 per cent of what we hear, and 30 per cent of what we see. If we see it and hear it, then we retain half, but if we talk to someone about it, that shoots up to 70 per cent retention. Actually doing something helps us to retain 80 per cent of the information, but the best retention – up to 95 per cent – is when we have to show someone, to teach it.  A teacher needs to be able to read what the other person wants and needs to present the information in a way that matters.

With this in mind, various delivery methods are being explored, from videos that explain common procedures such as castration, euthanasia or dehorning, to classroom and hands-on sessions, to a smart phone app that can tell a stockman practical information such as how many pigs should be loaded for transport on a hot day.  

REGARDING AGRICULTURE AS A PROFESSION
Probst-Miller sees IMPACT as an opportunity to promote working on a farm as a profession, even a calling. As she says, we need people to understand the importance of their daily activity or it’s just a job, not a profession.

Why is that distinction important? David Fraser is a Member of the Order of Canada and a professor of animal welfare at the University of British Columbia. He has watched as attitudes towards animals have changed during our lifetimes, and draws comparison to the historical debates surrounding the industrial revolution, when workers at home could no longer compete with large factories.

He suggests that what we are seeing today is a replay of the industrialization debate, where the “workers” are now the animals. But “very different welfare outcomes occur in the same type of physical environment,” Fraser said, depending on the skill and knowledge and attentiveness of the staff. In animal welfare, the standards focus on the physical environment; welfare depends on management.  Unlike industrialization, animals are in their barns 24 hours a day, not just for the duration of their work shift. This creates a complex set of demands requiring a high level of skill.

Fraser sees that animal production can evolve to be considered a profession, much like nursing, which was given the same consideration as prostitution and acting before Florence Nightingale led the way for it to become a registered profession.

It’s not there yet though, said Fraser. It will take a level of animal welfare that exceeds regulations, an increase in public trust, and an increase in the sense of ownership over the whole process. Fraser predicts that production producers will achieve that trust by being professional and that’s where IMPACT will play a role.

POULTRY RESOURCES
For poultry, the top three areas of concern identified through industry surveys were euthanasia, animal handling and housing. Since housing wasn’t something that IMPACT would address, transportation moved up to be the third area of concern.

Petrik was surprised by the focus on euthanasia, revealed as the number one concern in the field. In his practice he does see lots of people who don’t want to kill birds, or where hospital pens become hospice pens when people can’t give up on an animal. Despite its finality, euthanasia promotes animal welfare, said Petrik. People need to be confident in the process and the decision.

As part of the IMPACT program, a euthanasia decision tree poster that is already available for poultry, developed by the Poultry Industry Council (PIC), will join a manual of approved euthanasia methods that is nearing completion. Petrik says that while the manual won’t be an exhaustive list of euthanasia methods it will be heavy on pictures, giving lots of advice on avoiding mistakes. “We have had great industry support and input,” and while Petrik acknowledges that this has slowed down the process a bit, it has helped to create a much better document.

Once these euthanasia resources are in place the PIC will develop a classroom style course for farmers and co-ordinate instructors to teach it. That course may be three to four hours in length. Petrik expects this phase to be completed by May 2015. Delivery of the classroom portion is still in negotiation but Petrik anticipates the commodity boards will “make it work” since neither PIC nor IMPACT are expected to have funding for delivery.

When farmers have completed the classroom training they are eligible to have on-farm training, available by the end of June, possibly delivered by trainers who may be veterinarians, feed or hatchery representatives, grader representatives or board staff. “Each commodity is different,” said Petrik. The trainer will evaluate the current euthanasia techniques on each individual farm, reviewing important aspects on an individual basis. Upon completion of the training the farmer will receive recognition of demonstrated competency through a certificate that can then be kept on file for use in quality assurance programs.

WORKING WITH PARTNERS
A good example of how IMPACT has been able to work with industry is through a partnership with the Poultry Service Association (PSA). Susan Fitzgerald is the executive director of the PSA and as she explained, they had already identified the gap in training from their industry meetings in 2013; they knew what they wanted to do but with a limited budget they did not have funding to make it happen.

On their horizon are changes to the Meat Hygiene Manual of Procedures – what Fitzgerald called the “Chapter 12” changes – that come into effect in March 2016. At that time anyone handling or transporting poultry must have training in humane handling, although no specific training program is prescribed. As Fitzgerald explained, current Canadian Livestock Training (CLT) is light on poultry welfare and not a specific industry requirement.

OMAFRA provincial poultry specialist Al Dam has been offering training with catching courses and the Poultry Industry Council’s “Should this bird be loaded?” poultry decision tree training but they are fairly narrow in scope and not sustainable under the present structure. 

“The IMPACT funding allowed us to move forward and also challenged us to go over and above what we had initially envisioned for the poultry welfare piece,” said Fitzgerald.  “We did not originally plan on writing a new manual but there was no one existing resource that was either a) applicable to Ontario in its entirety, or b) comprehensive enough to cover farm to live receiving.”

IMPACT has allowed the development of that one manual that covers poultry welfare practices right from the hatchery to lairage and live receiving. The complete package is based on the American Poultry Handling and Transportation Quality Assurance (PHTQA) Certification Program and accompanying training material, with permission from Eva Wallner-Pendleton on behalf of Pennsylvania State University and Rafael Riveria on behalf of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association.

“We ended up revising, rewriting, deleting or adding to at least 65 per cent of the original content but it is certainly much easier to start with an existing document than from a blank page,” said Fitzgerald. They also drew on other available resources such as the National Codes of Practice and Dam’s current training material to develop the new Ontario Handling and Transportation Manual.

PSA members wanted a composite training program; “The missing piece is the on the ground training and information transfer which is what this project [IMPACT] is all about rather than just creating and distributing a print resource,” said Fitzgerald.

The new manual will have a section called “Preparing Poultry for Transport” that will be delivered along with euthanasia training in an effort to integrate the responsibility for poultry welfare from the farm to the processing plant. Other sections of the manual will cover biosecurity, vaccinations, preparing market birds for transport, dealing with end of lay hens and emergencies, and live receiving at processing plants.

The new manual will meet the requirements of three-year CLT certification and provide a certificate of completion for Ontario Poultry Handling and transportation training. In three years, at the end of the current cycle of training, re-certification resources are expected to be online. The training manual will be available in English, Thai and Spanish.
IMPACT funding is also able to subsidize the regular cost for the three-year CLT certification, which is normally $375.  During the IMPACT funding term the cost is only $175 per person, for up to 300 participants. “After the funding term, PSA will look at offering just the poultry welfare training (and not the CLT component),” said Fitzgerald. “The cost of that is yet to be determined.”

The commodity boards will roll out IMPACT as it fits their needs. Egg Farmers of Canada has already mandated euthanasia training this year. Other commodities may start now or wait a while. For IMPACT to work, Petrik acknowledges that industry needs to be motivated to form partnerships with the program.

By the end of the two-year IMPACT funding in May 2016, Petrik is aiming to have practical resources developed that can be accessed online and potentially shared with other provinces. For example, even though the Poultry Service Association is a provincial organization the new Ontario Poultry Handling and Transportation manual will be made available in electronic format to anyone across Canada.

While Petrik holds out a gold standard of animal care, success will include improvement at any level of husbandry, making the good better and better, the best. “We want to be ‘welfare central’ – the first place you look when you have questions,” he said.