Humane Treatment of Farmed Animals

As a founding member of the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), the CFHS has been improving living conditions for Canada’s farm animals since the Council’s inception in 2005.  As a leader in establishing science-based standards, the CFHS negotiates with animal industry leaders to update and strengthen the codes that define standards for the treatment of animals used for profit – known as Codes of Practice. 

Because of your donations, we made great strides in 2014 in representing the welfare of almost 600 million at risk farm animals. CFHS successfully negotiated for increased animal welfare standards for beef cattle, sheep and pigs. After an arduous and protracted series of negotiations the new pig code was released with 100 clear animal care requirements of which the most significant include the requirement of pain relief for tail docking and castration and a complete ban the construction of new barns that do not provide group housing effective as of July 1^st 2014. CFHS also provided consultation to the agriculture committee on improving farm animal welfare as well as called up the Minister of Agriculture to release update transportation codes. As an important part of the long term impact, CFHS is proud to announce that the New Brunswick provincial animal protection legislation, as of December 2014, cites the Codes of Practice as the minimum industry standard.  

In 2015, we will be working hard on four new species codes of practice for Chickens, Turkey and Breeders, and, Poultry – Layers, Veal Calves and Bison. When negotiating a new code the CFHS advocates using the 5 freedoms as a guideline.  When looking at intensive farming practices in the various poultry sectors and the veal industry the CFHS is deeply concerned about confinement housing and painful practices. For example, ninety-five per cent of these birds live on conventional egg laying farms where they spend their entire lives in small, cramped cages, called battery cages while most calves in factory farms are kept in veal crates in barns. The crates are 2 feet wide and provide enough room for them to stand or lie down. They are sometimes chained or tethered at the neck to restrict their movement.

Therefore, with your support, CFHS has brought in the top animal welfare scientists to negotiate on our behalf and behalf of the animals to end these practices. 

This process does not happen overnight and, the final product requires an entire industry to accept in order for it to be effective. That's why your support is so important.  Your funding has allowed the CFHS and its Code Representatives to continue to negotiate with industry groups to ensure that the highest levels of animal welfare and enrichment on Canadian farms are realized.  Your support helps us stay at the table, for many years in some cases, to ensure the well-being of Canadian farm animals.

Because of your donations, our highly skilled Code representative is at the table for the next round of negotiations with industry demanding better animal welfare for Chickens and Turkeys.  With the recent expose on veal farms, CFHS is now preparing for a possible veal code negotiation.

To put our involvement in the Codes process in context, over the 2013/2014 timeframe our Code Representatives represented the welfare of almost 30 million at-risk farm animals.  This can be broken down into: beef (12.8 million animals), equine (965,000 animals--2010 estimate), pig (12.7 million animals) and mink/fox: (2.6 million animals--2010 estimate). Now we add poultry and that takes the number up to almost 600 million at risk animals.

As a founding member of the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), the CFHS has been improving living conditions for Canada’s farm animals since the Council’s inception in 2005.  As a leader in establishing science-based standards, the CFHS negotiates with animal industry leaders to update and strengthen the codes that define standards for the treatment of animals used for profit – known as Codes of Practice. 

This process does not happen overnight and, the final product requires an entire industry to accept in order for it to be effective.  That's why your support is so important.  Your funding has allowed the CFHS and its Code Representatives to continue to negotiate with industry groups to ensure that the highest levels of animal welfare and enrichment on Canadian farms are realized.  

Your support helps us stay at the table, for many years in some cases, to ensure the well-being of Canadian farm animals.