Manitoba veterinarian Jewel White and two colleagues at a Maple Leaf Foods hog farm in Manitoba are the winners of this year’s F. X. Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production for creating something they call the “Backspacer Device.”
The invention is simple but significantly improves animal care and worker safety in pork barns during blood sampling.
White is the herd veterinarian for herds at Maple Leaf Agri-Farms in Landmark, Man. and regularly collects blood samples.
“The most common method is for a barn worker to use a snout snare to restrain the gilt or sow in a temporary stall for the procedure and pull the pig forward while the team member leans into the stall,” she said. “Pulling the pig forward with a snare stresses both the pig and the team member. And if the snare comes loose, the pig can suddenly impact the team member and cause injury.”
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White worked with veterinary assistant Ronald Nayre and farm maintenance technician Jim Kehler to design a spacer that is now used across Maple Leaf production barns.
“We created a light, aluminum device that could be inserted into the stall during the process and moved to the next stall when the process is complete,” White said.
How the device was created followed a pattern that is typical of Aherne Prize winners, said award committee chair Ben Willing, an associate professor at the University of Alberta.
“Someone has an idea, often teammates get involved and the product ends up finding use across that operation and others in the industry,” he said. “Those grassroots efforts typically draw widespread interest because they make a real difference in daily production work.”
The award is named after Frank Aherne, who was a professor at the University of Alberta and a major force for science-based progress in the Canadian pork industry. It was presented at the recent Banff Pork Seminar. More details on the device can be found at banffpork.ca.
