Have cattle? A project through the Ontario Veterinary College and supported by the Ontario Animal Health Network Bovine Group is looking for your manure. Well, more specifically, a project led by Dr. Jessica Gordon of OVC is looking to assess gastrointestinal parasite loads in grazing cattle. The project is open to Ontario producers with grazing… Read More
Category: Animal Health
Most by now are aware of the risk of Lyme disease, a bacterial diseased transmitted through deer ticks. But a relatively new tick has been found with increasing frequency in Canada — and the fallout of its bite is also serious. A bite from the Lone Star tick — named for the single white dot… Read More
The Alberta Lamb Producers (ALP) says that a positive, classical scrapie result was confirmed by a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) laboratory on a sheep from a farm in Alberta on June 21. The sheep was tested due to clinical signs consistent with scrapie, the producer group says, and because the sheep lived on multiple… Read More
Lameness is the dairy industry’s leading and most visible animal welfare concern. It’s also among the top three health challenges, along with mastitis and reproductive problems. Veterinarian Dr. Laura Solano, dairy cattle extension specialist at Calgary, Alberta-based Farm Animal Care Associates, says that despite the negative impacts to lameness, studies show that 15 to 30… Read More
Earlier this year, the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) informed the government it would no longer be carrying out animal welfare law enforcement. The announcement has spurred the need for an overhaul of Ontario’s Ontario Animal Protection Act, but also left a gap between the current set up and the… Read More
First introduced to Canada in the 1980s as a diversification option, wild hog populations outside of farmed production have been steadily climbing. Wild hogs that escaped from farms or were released from enclosures when businesses shut down have done very well in Saskatchewan — so well that it’s estimated descendants of those original hogs now… Read More
The Canadian Pork Council (CPC) confirms that pork from one Canadian pork establishment have been temporarily suspended after Chinese officials . say a shipment of frozen pork products tested positive for the presence of Ractopamine. This makes three Canadian pork processors currently blocked from shipping to China. The first two sites — one in Quebec… Read More
Yet another undercover animal abuse video rolled out last week, filmed months ago by animal rights “activists,” and released just as tweets and photos celebrating June as Dairy Month began. In the same week, mainstream media published several stories following up on what many farmers had brought forward at the Standing Committee on Agriculture: that… Read More
Often prescribed for curing thrush and other fungal infections of humans and a common ingredient in foot and hoof treatments for livestock, Health Canada has come out and said gentian violet increases the risk of cancer and is urging everyone — farmers included — to stop using any products that include the ingredient. Following a… Read More
U.S.-based Fair Oaks Farms dairy is under fire this week after an animal rights group circulated a video showing abuse of dairy calves at the dairy. Fair Oaks is a supplier of Coca-Cola’s Fairlife milk brand. Owner Dr. Mike McCloskey posted a video statement on the company’s web page. In it, McCloskey apologizes for the… Read More