WCVM Exploring Thoughts of Pork Producers and Veterinarians on Animal Welfare

Pork producers and veterinarians are being invited to participate in a study which examines the relationship between the management of animal welfare and business sustainability.The Western College of Veterinary Medicine has launched a study under which pork producers and veterinarians are being interviewed about management decisions that influence animal welfare and how that relates to business sustainability.

Dr. Yolande Seddon, an Associate Professor Swine Welfare and Behavior with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine and the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Swine Welfare, says information gathered through this work will be used to create a tool to support decision making related to animal welfare.

Quote-Dr. Yolande Seddon-Western College of Veterinary Medicine:

We wish to speak to producers who are making management decisions for the pigs and at the same time herd veterinarians that could be working within the same company or an independent herd veterinarian who works with a variety of pork production companies and are also giving advice on decisions that will influence the management of those animals.

We collect standard information on the demographics of who we are speaking to to understand their age, work experience.We ask about their understanding of animal welfare and what does animal welfare mean to them and also to get an idea about what indicators they use to monitor animal welfare and what's important to themselves or the company they work for.

We also ask questions about aspects of animal management and how, in their experience, they consider it relates to animal welfare and production and other business sustainability goals, including how this impacts staff well being.We are in process of conducting interviews at present and we will continue to conduct interviews until we have met the required number we need to have a decent sample size.

Ideally we would continue to receive responses from people who are happy to be interviewed until the end of March and perhaps continue to conduct interviews up until the end of April.Details on this study and how to participate can be found at swinewelfare.com.