Canadian Livestock Records Corporation (CLRC) Annual Meeting

On April 14, 2007, the annual meeting for the Canadian Livestock Records Corporation was held in Toronto, Ontario. The meeting consisted of workshops in the morning on a number of livestock related issues including information on data management for improved livestock genetics, genetic resources, and equine issues. In the afternoon, the business meeting for the CLRC took place. The four current members, whose terms were up on the Board of Directors, were re-elected to an additional two year term. During the meeting, a motion to have a review of the Animal Pedigree Act was presented and discussed at length. It was narrowly defeated. The following information provides a summary of the three workshops.

Workshops:

Managing Livestock Genetics on the Web: Tools Available to Canadian Swine & Goat Breeders Presenter - Brian Sullivan, Manager, Canadian Centre for Swine Improvement and the Canadian Swine Breeders Association Website: www.ccsi.ca

o The Canadian Centre for Swine Improvement have developed a database of breeding animals that allows a breeder to selectively breed animals that have the best chance of producing off springs with certain desired characteristics. The breeder selects desired traits and then selects the best match of animals to achieve that goal. The database provides information that can be used to help make selections related to breeding, culling, etc. The information can be retrieved based on pedigree, progeny, performance, and it provides an inbreeding coefficient that tells you how close two animals are related, the genetic variability of a herd and the percentage of genes from different animals.

o This type of program could be very useful in the horse industry were we have been trying to do this type of selective breeding, but to my knowledge have never gone about it in such an organized and all encompassing way. It presents great possibilities.

The Canadian Animal Genetics Resources Program - Presenter Dr. Carl Lessard

 

• The goal of this program is to build a genetic resource gene pool of Canadian animals that would be capable of regenerating a breed that becomes endangered.
• They are looking for contributions both financial and genetic (semen and embryos) to build this resource base.
• They are doing research in how to preserve genetic material for long periods of time so it will be available in the future to regenerate a breed if necessary.  This research will also benefit the AI programs by helping genetic material stay vital during transport.
• Email plantey@agr.gc.ca

 

Equine Industry Initiatives -Presenter Vel Evans, Equine Canada (EC)

 

• The Canadian Livestock Identification Agency has established the West Lake Zone Border Committee to develop a Manitoba/Ontario Border pilot project to control livestock movement between the two halves of Canada.  This would allow one half of Canada to be isolation from the other in the event of a disease outbreak.
• The Equine Herpes Virus (EHV) http://www.petcaretips.net/equine_herpes_virus.html

EVH is becoming more prevalent.  It is currently an annually reportable disease, but EC is lobbying to have it made an immediately reportable disease.

·        The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is being lobbied to allow veterinary medicines which have already been licensed in other countries to be licensed more rapidly for Canadian use.  It is currently very difficult to get a drug license for use here in Canada because of our testing rules and our relatively small market.  If tests already conducted in other countries were recognized then the availability of veterinary drugs could be increased.

·        Compensation for animals ordered destroyed for contagious diseases has been a maximum of $2,750 for horses since 1998.  A review of compensation has been done and the maximum amount for horses will rise to $8,000.  However, the maximum for horses ordered destroyed for Equine Infectious Anemia (EIA) will be lowered to $2,000 because EIA is now considered to be preventable.  This should come into effect very soon.

·        Breeds and Industry are lobbying to have the horse industry included in the livestock "Zero rated" for GST list.  This will be difficult because the horse industry pays the government over $250,000,000 annually in GST.

·        Equine ID is and ongoing issue because all animals who end up in the food chain need to be tracked to prevent the spread of disease.  The movement and identification of horses will eventually have to be accomplished.  At the present EC is recommending that the current registration information be used as the basis for identifying as many horses as possible.  This will be the least disruptive and the easiest to accomplish.  At the present time it has not been decided who and how the cost of keeping and organizing this information will be accomplished.  There could be a one time cost at the time of registration of the animal or the cost could be spread out to include the cost of registration and each transfer/lease change that occurs. All non-registered animals will have to also be identified.   The provinces will be responsible for finding a way to track movement of horses around and in and out of the province.  The information that is gathered will also have to be safeguarded to limit its use to the specific purpose of risk management incase of infectious diseases.  Currently visual descriptions are the primary method of identifying horses.  This identification method will have to be standardized and Olds College has a program that teaches a standard method of visual identification.  Internationally an attempt is being made to develop international standards for the identification of horses so countries can exchange information.  In the US equine ID is on a voluntary basis.  By March 31, 2008 each province in Canada is to have an identification plan in place.  The CAN-EQUID is going ahead with a voluntary ID system in Canada.  If you are going to use micro chips use ISO Internationally accepted chips.

·        EC has a free area on its website where you can list horse for sale.

·        EC has an agreement with John Deere for up to 23% discounts for EC members.

·        EC has an agreement with Dodge to have its members buy new trucks at the factory pricing level.

·        www.equinecanada.ca