When selling pigs to your neighbours or people you meet online, do you know who they are or where they are taking the animals? If the answer is no, then neither do we.
In order to properly respond to a disease outbreak, investigators need to know who and what sites are involved. Which sites are at risk? For anyone who owns pigs—regardless of the reason or how many are owned—it is important to be registered with Alberta Pork. Disease doesn’t discriminate. Every pig matters.
Alberta Pork asks all registered producers and partners to help us spread the message about the importance of producer registration for those who are not currently registered. There are many small producers and backyard hobbyists looking to buy and sell pigs. Facebook, Kijiji and other online forums are full of wanted ads seeking grower pigs for home slaughter and consumption.
We would like to remind you that any pig leaving your farm must be recorded on a swine manifest submitted to Alberta Pork. We appreciate your assistance, as a registered producer, in this process.
To you, it might not seem to be significant, but selling pigs to unregistered individuals creates a considerable gap in the Alberta Swine Traceability System. It hinders our ability to effectively stop or minimize the impact of any disease outbreak. With diseases like African Swine Fever (ASF) potentially threatening our herds and porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) entering our province this year for the first time ever, having gaps in pig movement data could be extremely risky.
Alberta Pork is currently developing a printed manual for small-scale producers, which should be available soon. We advise all producers who are selling to the public to keep on-hand two sets of materials at all times: producer and premise registration forms and registration frequently asked questions (FAQs). These will be helpful should you need to provide this information to a buyer. Feel free to print these yourself or request copies from Alberta Pork.
As part of any transaction with an unregistered individual, kindly remind the buyer to register with us, and write on the manifest the buyer’s name, email and contact phone number. Alberta Pork will follow-up with that individual to facilitate registration.
For more information, including copies of printed materials like registration resources and manifests, please contact Christina Carley, Traceability Coordinator, Alberta Pork by email at christina.carley@albertapork.com or by phone at 780-440-8461, toll-free at 1-877-247-PORK (7675).