Pig Code Update Committee Identified Priority Welfare Issues Important for Pig Welfare

Members of two committees charged with updating Canada's Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs has identified five priority welfare issues important for the welfare of pigs.The National Farm Animal Care Council's December Information Update, released Friday, details progress on the five Canadian codes of practice currently under revision.

Jackie Wepruk, the Division Director for NFACC, says all members of both the Pig Code Committee and the Scientific Committee, a total of 14, attended the first in-person meeting held over two days in Ottawa in late October to lay the initial groundwork for updating the code, be briefed on the industry and the code process and review information related to updating the code.

Quote-Jackie Wepruk-National Farm Animal Care Council:

A key deliverable from that first meeting was agreement around what we call priority welfare issues.Priority welfare issues refer to usually four to six welfare related topics that the members of both the code committee and the scientific committee can agree are important for the welfare of pigs and for which a peer reviewed literature review would be of benefit to the code committee.

So, ensuring that they have the best and the most recent science available to the code committee upon which they can deliberate and upon which they can determine what requirements and recommended practices need to be updated within the code.Those priority welfare issues are posted on NFACC's web site.
They're there now but very briefly there are five of them.

They include a review of enrichment strategies with a focus on practical applications, housing related to functional space, both in terms of quantity and quality, pain control and there's a fair amount of detail around what aspects of pain control the scientific committee will be investigating, lameness and a review of euthanasia methods as well.

Wepruk says moving forward the committee will be working to identify areas for improvement and achieving a consensus on any changes.
She says, once that consensus has been achieved, a draft of the updated code will be released for public comment with a target date of March 2028.