Canada could see a new update to how it manages poultry as farm organizations manage the Poultry Code of Practice.
That code, managed by the National Farm Animal Care Council, relates to poultry and egg producers in Canada in regards to best practices and policies.
Jackie Wepruk, the division director for the NFACC, says it's a wide-ranging code important for the industry.
"This is a code that was originally released in 2016 and it relates to four sectors that have come together and they have a single code related to turkeys, chickens, hatching eggs, and then the Canadian poultry and egg processors are also involved as well."
"So all four of those national industry leads indicated that they wanted to update the 2016 code and so when a national livestock or poultry group comes to NFACC and commits to the NFACC code development process we start moving forward with updating the code as soon as we have the needed funding."
The code covers most sectors of poultry raising in Canada, with Wepruk saying the list is long.
"All the codes cover key areas of animal production, so they're going to cover off housing and handling, feed, and water. There are a number of specific topics that need to be covered in every code, so housing and handling facilities, health management, husbandry and stockmanship, emergency management and preparedness, pre-transport considerations and euthanasia."
In order to learn what kind of updates are needed the NFACC held a top-of-min survey for producers, which will be used to learn what changes might need to be made.
"The code committee will look at what those top-of-mind concerns are, we create a report that we put out publicly so that everyone knows where people coalesced around what topics. So the code committee will take that into consideration," said Wepruk. "They'll also be deliberating on what priority welfare issues that they'd like to see a scientific committee produce a report on to help support their deliberations and consensus decision-making related to any new science that's been developed around, you know, hatching eggs, breeders, chickens, and turkeys since that last code was updated."
Wepruk says that since they're just in the beginning stages the new code won't be shown off for a while.
"We're just getting started and so we have some tentative timelines at this point, all codes go for public comment. So right now, the public comment period for this code is scheduled somewhere in the September or October 2026 period. It is a 60-day public comment period. That's our tentative plan and our tentative projected completion date for this code is September of 2027. These are not quick deliberations, we bring really diverse groups together to come to a consensus on each code of practice. So those conversations can take some time."
Anyone looking to follow along with the code and learn more about NFACC can visit their website at nfacc.ca and find info under their Chicken, Turkey, and Breeders section.
Source : Pembinavalley online