Good gilt management improves lifetime productivity

Genetic progress in litter size has been rapid over the last 15 years, with an annual improvement in the range of 0.2 – 0.3 total born. For many producers, litter size is no longer a limiting factor to achieving a high number of pigs born per sow per year. Today’s challenges now centre around maximizing



Did farming make us less intelligent?

Reuters / A recent study in the journal Trends in Genetics argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago. “The development of our intellectual abilities and the optimization of thousands of intelligence genes probably occurred in relatively non-verbal, dispersed groups of

Prices plummet in spite of quality

There were 750 sheep and goats delivered to the Winnipeg Livestock Auction Nov. 7 sale. Bidding was lacklustre compared to earlier sales and prices were lower, despite good-quality sheep and goats on offer. There was equal representation from wool and hair sheep ewes with the average price ranging from $.39 to $.58 per pound. A


After beef’s biggest recall: What’s next?

The reopening of the XL beef plant at Brooks is not the end of troubles for the Canadian beef industry

The past two months have seen considerable turmoil in Alberta’s beef sector because of the XL beef recall. Although there has been some relief with the JBS takeover there could still be a long way to go. Canada’s beef sector has been influenced by a number of factors:  Grass. Western Canada’s cow-calf sector grew because

Manitoba Pork Council prepares for end of gestation stalls

Dealing with aggression, finding the best design, and retraining barn workers are some of 
the issues producers will have to deal with when they shift to open housing

If it’s time to update your hog barn or if you’re thinking about new equipment, then it’s also time to think about converting your sow gestation stalls to open-housing systems. “We’re working with the date of 2025, and we’re continuing to encourage producers to look at that date as well,” said Mark Fynn, animal care


Free hunting offered near Riding Mountain to beat TB

It’s not quite an all-you-can-shoot buffet, but a limited number of free deer hunting licences and an extended season are the latest tools being used in the ongoing effort to eradicate bovine tuberculosis near Riding Mountain National Park. So far, 140 free deer harvest tags have been handed out by Manitoba Conservation covering the special

Letters — for 2012-11-15 00:00:00

Let’s get talking I appreciated the article in the August 30, 2012 edition entitled “Animal welfare – act now, or have someone else do it.” To have producers be proactive to address the concerns of both people in animal welfare groups as well as the purchasing public would be terrific. There does seem to be



Community pasture takeover plan revealed

Proposal calls for a new, non-profit corporation with seven elected 
members to take over former federally managed community pastures

The federal government is pulling out, but a new boss is taking up the reins. A steering committee for the Association of Manitoba Community Pastures, a new not-for-profit group, has developed a business plan for taking over the operation of a million acres of formerly federally managed grazing rangelands in the province. That’s good news,