Pork Producers Advised to Use Needleless Injectors

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Latest Pig Industry News

Monday, November 16, 2009

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Pork Producers Advised to Use Needleless Injectors

CANADA - Manitoba Pork Council is encouraging the province's pork producers to take advantage of a new program which offers assistance for the purchase of a needless injector, writes Bruce Cochrane.

Farm-Scape is sponsored by
Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork

FarmScape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council
and Sask Pork.

As part of the On-Farm Food Safety Program, offered under the federal-provincial Growing Forward Program, Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives is providing up to two thousand dollars to be applied toward the purchase of a needleless injector.

Manitoba Pork Council quality assurance and labor programs manager Miles Beaudin says needless injectors offer benefits from both a food safety and an animal welfare perspective.

Miles Beaudin-Manitoba Pork Council

The key benefits are probably those reasons why we're pushing to help get this product out here.

The benefits are, from a food safety perspective, it doesn't use a physical hazard which is needles in our food safety program.

Needles sometimes break in the pig and producers lose the pig or they don't notify the packer there's a broken needle and sometimes the pigs end up at the processor.

With using needless injectors that physical hazard is completely eliminated so that's one aspect.

The other aspect is welfare.

Instead of giving a pig a needle, it has a tendency to sometimes create abscesses, swelling, discomfort for the pig.

Needles injectors, you don't puncture the skin and the pigs don't necessarily associate any pain with a needless injector.

I know pigs, they don't even flinch it looks like so it's a lot better system for the pig.

Mr Beaudin says the up front cost of needless injectors range from two thousand to five thousand dollars but the assistance will greatly accelerate the payback period.