Category: Animal Welfare

Animal Welfare

High rise piggeries and tech….

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I am all for Precision Farming, Smart Technology and data driven solutions…but this article in Pig Progress (!) caught my eye this morning for all the wrong reasons. There are now 62 of these high rise piggeries in production or under construction in China. The design is said to be suitable for all geographic locations and climate conditions. The company is now on Version 5, which means they are learning and improving all the time. This also means there are 4 previous versions, which are not quite so good and could be compromising the welfare of thousands of pigs. I […]

Animal Welfare

Listen, learn, support, and encourage

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In every walk of life, we will find good and bad. “One bad apple can spoil the bunch”, but only if we let it. How we behave when bad practice is brought to our attention defines us. Do we make a knee jerk reaction to condemn the whole bunch? Is it enough to identify the “bad apple” and remove it? Or do we listen, learn, support and encourage the bunch, so that they can identify the “bad apples” and take the necessary action to improve the processes so that the bad apples know their actions will not be tolerated. When […]

Animal Welfare

Celebrating my First Anniversary

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What a year it has been! On the 30th April 2019, after 34 years of continuous, full time employment, I gave back my laptop, mobile phone and company car, then caught the train home to Devon! On the 1st May, I launched my limited company. I was fortunate in having the buffer of a contract with NSF, to continue providing project management for one client. I knew this would not provide me with the volume or balance of work that I wanted or needed. 2019 was a year of networking; making new connections in the first 6 months, whilst I […]

Animal Welfare

Networking at HRC

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An insightful day at Hotels, Restaurants and Catering (HRC), ExCel, London. Some inspiring people, promoting innovative products and brands. I discussed animal welfare with many brands, avoiding the growing range of vegan ones and unfortunately missing out on coffee, tea and alcohol! The most exciting brand I found today was Fruitpig (www.fruitpig.co.uk), a specialist butcher who produces black pudding, using fresh blood from a pig abattoir in Norfolk. So passionate about his products and their provenance. An interesting conversation with The Vogue Beds Group (www.voguebeds.co.uk) about where horse hair comes from! An animal based textile that had completely passed me by; […]

Animal Welfare

Supporting #WoolwithaButt

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Livestock production systems must re-consider any “norms” which rely on management interventions which involve mutilations. It is time to think outside the box and look for non-invasive solutions.  Let’s take responsibility for our industries, identify the challenges and find the solutions before they are forced upon us by consumer campaigns. Traditional Merino sheep strains in Australia have woolly wrinkles and folds around the tail and breech area, which are highly susceptible to flystrike. For years, the prevention method has included the removal of the folds of skin around the breech. There are several methods for removing this skin using sharp […]

Animal Welfare

CPD

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Continued Professional Development is not always easy to find time or resource for when setting up business on your own. For consultants, it is however essential, to ensure that we keep up to date with industry needs, legislation and innovation. Of particular interest to me, at the seminar yesterday, was the Nex. Far too often I find chicken breeder farmers struggling to find a mechanical cervical dislocation method which they feel comfortable with. It has been hard for many to adjust to the fact that manual dislocation is no longer legal, particularly for the older generations who have been working […]

Animal Welfare

Give businesses a chance

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In October 2017 a global hotel chain made a commitment to move to cage free eggs by 2025. This commitment was applauded by the welfare groups. So why is that there is a Twitter campaign running, suggesting people boycott the hotels until they have kept their promise? How can Wyndham’s have broken their promise? We are only two years into an eight year transition! The business has a duty of care to their suppliers and the farmers in those supply chains. Change takes planning, financial investment and in this case construction or rebuilds. It is important to allow these companies […]