If you’ve ever had the pleasure of being a dog parent you know how important early life experiences are for your puppy and how much they can impact their behavior later in life. For example, we’ve all been told that positive social interactions for young puppies helps them build the social skills they’ll need as adults, giving them confidence to interact with other dogs while on walks, at the dog park, and if you ever want to bring a second puppy home.

But what about early life experiences for farm animals like laying hens?

Research has shown that early exposure to environments with certain features – think perches, bedding material for scratching, foraging, and dustbathing, and extra space – help to better prepare hens for life in adulthood in a non-cage environment (don’t forget, all types of cages are prohibited under our Standards for all certification levels!).

At G.A.P., not only do we have Standards for laying hens, but we also have Standards for pullets. We are one of the only animal welfare certifications that have a full set of Standards for pullets.

What’s a pullet, you ask?

Pullets are young female chickens that have not yet laid an egg (approximately 1-18 weeks of age). Pullets have outgrown their baby chick phase and their adult feathers have started coming in. Being immature, pullets are smaller and weigh less than adult laying hens and their combs and wattles are not as big or red in color yet. Usually pullets are housed at one farm and then transferred to another specialized farm when they are ready to start laying eggs.

So why do we have Standards for pullets then? Keep reading for three ways G.A.P. Standards can prepare pullets for adulthood:

1: Build Stronger Bones and Muscles

Providing more opportunities for pullets to move around and exercise improves bone and muscle quality characteristics later in life. Research has shown that rearing pullets in non-cage systems increase wing and breast muscle development and improves bone density when compared to pullets reared in conventional cages that offer limited access for exercise and activity.

Like our Laying Hen Standards, our Pullet Standards also prohibit the use of cages to house birds. Housing pullets in non-cage systems provides them the opportunity for increased exercise and activity, like walking, running, wing flapping, jumping, foraging, and dustbathing – activities that may help to build and develop bones and muscles that will benefit them during rearing, but also later in life.

2: Learn How to Navigate 3D Spaces

G.A.P.’s Pullet Standards require perches to be provided throughout the rearing period. This not only gives pullets somewhere to roost at night (a natural and highly motivated behavior), but also ensures that pullets learn how to use vertical spaces. Research has shown that birds reared without access raised platforms or perches are slower to learn how to use them later in life.

In addition, G.A.P. requires that pullets are reared in a similar environment to the one they are to be housed in when they are adults. Therefore, if multiple tiers or levels are used in the laying barn, there should be multiple tiers or levels offered in the pullet barn too. By keeping the two environments similar, stress at transfer is reduced and it ensures that the birds already know how to access all the different areas of their housing environment when they arrive at the laying barn.

3: Reduce Risk of Unwanted Behaviors

You might be wondering what kind of unwanted behavior a hen could possibly do! Hens are highly motivated to forage – by this we mean scratching and pecking at the ground. In natural settings, this is how hens would find their food sources, eating bugs and vegetation they find in their environment. For caged hens, the access to material for foraging, like wood shavings, is extremely limited. This lack of stimulation can result in a redirection of foraging-like behaviors on to the feathers of their fellow hens. In the industry and scientific literature, this is known as feather pecking. Severe feather pecking is painful for the victim and can result in large bald patches and even damage to the skin.

G.A.P.’s pullet Standards require that chicks and pullets are provided with material for foraging from day 1 – and that it’s kept dry and usable (not wet and clumpy). This helps reduce the likelihood of feather pecking developing and improves welfare of the flock. We also highly recommend providing enrichments for pullets as extra items can help reduce the development of feather pecking even more so!

At G.A.P., we try to ask ourselves “why?” with every decision we make. This helps our standard-setting process stay thoughtful and ensures that every requirement has a purpose. G.A.P.’s approach to farm animal welfare is always focused on the animal first. That’s why our standards cover the lifecycle of the animal, not just adulthood. We hope this information has helped answer some of your own “why?” questions about pullets and laying hens.

For more information, check out our species-specific standards pages here and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to stay up-to-date!

The post Impacting the Early Life of a Laying Hen appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

Research has shown that hens living in a more naturalistic environment were observed to spend up to 75% of daylight hours foraging – a behavior that includes scratching and pecking at the ground and vegetation in search of food. Like the majority of hens raised in North America, hens housed without material on the ground (e.g. litter) or access to pasture on which to forage, are more likely to develop unwanted behaviors like feather pecking (which can lead to the removal of feathers and even cannibalism – yikes!). That’s why G.A.P.’s standards for laying hens ensure that birds have unrestricted access to litter (for Base Certification/Step 1 and Enriched Environment/Step 2), or litter and vegetation (Outdoor Access/Step 3 through Entire Life on Farm/Step 5+).

G.A.P. Partner Fair Farm – Doing it Right

Our partners at Fair Farm, certified to G.A.P.’s Entire Life on Farm/Step 5+ animal welfare tier (check them out on Instagram and Facebook), have infused their passion for producing high quality, local food into the way they care for their hens. Both pullets (a term for young hens before they lay their first egg) and hens are housed in mobile coops on a sprawling 60-acre property nestled in the foothills just outside Boulder, CO. Hens have free access to the pasture during the day, and, at night, cozy up on the roosts inside the coop.

With plenty of access to pasture, the ‘fair ladies’ at Fair Farm have plenty to keep them busy during the day. Foraging for bugs and bits of grass to eat mean that their eggs are loaded with nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids. Foraging on grass keeps the hens mentally and physically healthy and in turns provides consumers with a healthy and nutritious protein source.

Keeping it Fresh

Not unlike pasture management for beef cattle and sheep, hens and coops have to be moved from spot to spot on a regular basis in order to keep the pasture fresh and give the land time to regenerate between uses. This keeps the soil healthy and from getting muddy and overly denuded.

So what do hens do for the other 25% of the day?

Other activities, including resting, drinking, dustbathing, preening, and egg laying make up the rest of the time that isn’t spent foraging.

Did you know? Some breeds of egg laying hens can lay almost an egg a day! Like an expectant human mother performing ‘nesting behaviors’, hens like to find or create a comfortable spot to lay their eggs. Hens are highly motivated to access nesting areas and nesting materials. In conventional cage systems, there is no designated nesting area and hens often show behavioral and physiological symptoms of stress leading up to the point of egg laying.

The fair ladies at Fair Farm are given access to ample nesting areas that include material for the hens to manipulate (peck and scratch at) into the perfect nest for them to use every day.

Being G.A.P. Animal Welfare Certified

G.A.P.’s comprehensive animal welfare standards, created across multiple species from laying hens to bison, cover the entire lifecycle of the animal. Hungry for more info about our partners? Read about poultry farming and maintaining good litter quality here, and about raising young turkeys here. G.A.P. sets the standards, our valued partners implement them, and our third-party certifiers audit every farm to ensure the standards are being met. It’s an important process that helps us impact the lives of more than 416 million animals annually.

Please keep in touch! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter by scrolling down to the bottom (footer) of this webpage, and entering your email address.

Have your own story you want to share? Email us at info@globalanimalpartnership.org and let’s talk.

The post A Day in the Life of a Laying Hen appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

The work doesn’t stop

As you may guess, despite the days getting shorter and the cold weather continuing to roll in, work on the farm is far from over – animals still need care and farm chores still need tending. Anyone with pets, especially dogs and horses, can attest to this. Even when it’s cold enough for your tongue to get stuck on a metal pole (is it just Canadians that try that?), dogs still need to be walked and horses still need to be exercised. Just as we need to throw on that warmer sweater as we step out the door, our pets start donning their colder weather gear, too.

Dealing with the Cold

Of course, farm animals don’t need to be blanketed; there are other ways to deal with the colder temperatures. Maintaining thermal comfort is an important requirement for all our species-specific standards. In a previous G.A.P. Farm Life blog, we talked about breed selection – farms in more northern climates may prefer to choose breeds that are better adapted to colder weather. In addition, making sure there is enough forage for ruminants to eat is important too. As the forage is broken down in the rumen, excess heat is produced, which can be helpful to keep cattle and sheep warm (we talked about rumen health and diet in this blog).

The thermal comfort of non-ruminant species (this is a fancy way to describe animals that don’t have four-chambered digestive tracts that include a big rumen, like pigs and poultry) also needs to be considered. Baby chicks and turkey poults need extra heat for the first few days and weeks of life. Remember our blog on turkey brooding? Keeping chicks and poults warm in the fall and winter becomes even more critical as the ambient temperature drops.

Like chicks and poults, baby piglets also sometimes need an external heat source for the first few days after birth. Reducing draughts, keeping barns and buildings watertight, and providing extra bedding are helpful ways to keep animals, including pigs, warm. Check out our Snow Days blog to learn how our partners in the UK keep their pigs warm throughout the winter.

It’s also the season of coming together

For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, or just use it as a reason to get together with friends and family, check out our yummy recipes (à la G.A.P. Team members). From Bacon Cheddar Scones to a One-Hour Thanksgiving Turkey, and everything in between, these dishes won’t fail to impress your guests!

Shout out to our G.A.P. farm partners on the other side of the world – in Australia and New Zealand – who are actually in the middle of their spring, heading into summer! I’m sure they’re still getting together for lots of family meals this season as well.

Keep in touch

Stay up-to-date with our latest news! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We also send out a specially curated newsletter to our G.A.P. followers – go to our website, scroll down to the bottom, and enter your email address to subscribe. Liked what you read here? Check out our other G.A.P. Farm Life blogs that weren’t mentioned above:

The Grass is Always Greener…In the Hay Bale

“Litter”-ally Keeping Turkeys Comfortable

A Lambing Success Story

Hogging the Spotlight

On the Move: Achieving Symbiosis in Cattle Ranching

The Dog Days of Summer

Guardian Dogs – A Farmer’s Best Friend

The post Winter is coming appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

Did you say “LGD”?

Did you know there are other types of working farm dogs? We’re talking about livestock guardian dogs, or LGDs, for short! What are LGDs, you ask? Their title gives their job away; they are responsible for protecting farm animals. Usually, LGDs protect animals like sheep that are easier prey due to their smaller size, but you can find them protecting all types of farm animals.

Where would I see LGDs?

With sheep that are grazed extensively – meaning the sheep are given access to large areas of grazing land – our partners at High Country Lamb are no strangers to the challenges that Mother Nature brings with predators like mountain lions, coyotes, and bears (oh my!). One way to deal with these kinds of predators is to use LGDs. Though dogs are not the only species that can act as guardian animals, High Country Lamb have found that dogs are well suited to the job. They use a variety of breeds, including Anatolian Shepherds, Great Pyrenees, and Akbash dogs – all of which are well known LGD breeds.

What do LGDs have to do with G.A.P.?

The use of well-trained livestock guardian dogs fits well with G.A.P.’s sheep standards – deterring predators from hunting and killing sheep, especially the vulnerable lambs. These dogs are bred for a number of traits that help them with their jobs:

• Ability to live in harmony with the flock they are protecting;
• Physical attributes that allow LGDs to be successful in the climate and environment they live in (large size to scare off predators and thick undercoat for chilly winters, for example);
• Gentle with people; and
• Most importantly, ability to detect and deter predators.

As you can see, these are not the type of dog to binge watch Netflix on the couch with their owners! They are happiest living outside and keeping their flock safe.

Socialization is key

Though livestock protection generally comes naturally to LGD breeds, individual personality and early life experiences also play a role in the success of an LGD. At High Country Lamb Ranch, dogs are bred and raised on farm – living with the sheep from day one. This helps the puppies bond with the sheep they are to protect. The dog breeds that High Country Lamb uses are known for their independent and strong-willed natures, making them suitable for this type of work. While independence is a very important trait, it’s also important that the dogs are well socialized with the farmers and other humans to allow for ease of handling and routine care-giving. Though LGDs can be gentle and friendly, they are also very loyal and protective, and if spotted out with sheep, passersby should give the dogs space and avoid disturbing them or their flock.

An important job

Good guardian dogs are worth their weight in gold – they make sure to keep the flock, especially young and vulnerable lambs, safe from predators. They are good at keeping a very watchful eye on their charges – sensitive to slight changes in the demeanor of the flock. They’ll also patrol the perimeter of the pasture on a regular basis, especially at night, when predators are more active. This helps deter predators without having to set up really long fence lines (not practical for extensively grazed flocks) or set traps (leg traps, snares, etc. are prohibited by G.A.P.’s standards).

Did you know that G.A.P. has requirements within our species-specific standards for guardian dogs too? Pozzi Ranch, one of our other G.A.P. Animal Welfare Certified partners also uses guardian dogs to protect their lambs. Read here to learn more about their operation. G.A.P. also certifies the ingredients used in many pet food brands. We traveled to the SuperZoo pet industry trade show in August to meet with brands prioritizing animal welfare in their businesses as well. Check out our adventures here.

To keep up-to-date with more posts like this, follow #GAPFarmLife on social media (including Instagram and Facebook)! And the next time you see a farm picture with a “funny looking” sheep, it is probably a livestock guardian dog! Now you know.

The post Guardian Dogs – A Farmer’s Best Friend appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

It all starts at the hatchery

Did you know that it takes 28 days of incubation for fertile turkey eggs to hatch? Specialized operations called hatcheries use large appliances (incubators and hatchers) to provide the ideal environment for developing turkey embryos – the temperature and humidity must be closely monitored and controlled for optimum hatching success. After four weeks, the group of poults begin the hatching process – pecking their way out of the eggs. After they’ve all finished hatching, the hatchery staff will begin transferring them to the containers that will take them to their new home – the farms.

Now it’s time to prep the barns…

In anticipation of the poults’ arrival, the farmers must make sure the barns are ready for their new charges. At JD Farms, the barns are cleaned and the floors covered with fresh litter (we learned about litter in a previous turkey blog – check it out here) before the poults arrive. Of course, feed and water must be available and ready for the poults to discover once they arrive at the farm. Also, as a way to keep the poults closer to each other and to their feed and water, the poults are usually kept in smaller areas within the barn. At JD Farms, the poults are given access to only one side of the barn. The divider will be removed as the birds grow and need more space. (Remember: G.A.P. defines these space requirements in our detailed animal welfare standards.) Finally, like most young animals, poults need extra warmth to keep them comfortable for the first few weeks of life. The barns are heated to 89-91°F (31.7-32.8°C) to start, and from there, the temperature is gradually reduced each day to match the needs of the turkeys as they grow.

Welcome new poults!

At JD Farms, the freshly hatched poults have a short ride on the truck to the farm – a quick 15 minutes from door to door. When they arrive at the farm, each container of poults is swiftly, but quietly, removed from the truck and unloaded by the farm workers into the barns.

Special care is a must

“Brooding” is just farm-speak for caring for young poultry. Similar to the care given after the arrival of a new family puppy, the poults are monitored extra closely for signs of comfort or discomfort. Are they huddled in one corner? This might indicate they are too cold or there is a draught somewhere. Are they as spread out as possible and breathing with their beaks open? This might indicate they are too warm. Are they active and expressing normal behavior? This means they’re healthy and have been accessing feed and water successfully. Making sure the poults are adapting well to their new home is very important for raising a healthy flock of turkeys.

G.A.P.’s standards in action

If you weren’t aware that G.A.P.’s comprehensive animal welfare standards cover the entire lifecycle of the animal, now you do. Our farm team members are specialists in farm animal welfare, so they analyze every stage of the animal’s lifecycle and develop G.A.P.’s standards accordingly. That’s what sets our program apart from others – our standards are always developed, first and foremost, with the animal in mind.

And that’s how our program works: G.A.P. sets the standards, our valued partners implement them, and our third-party certifiers audit every farm to ensure the standards are being met. It’s an important process that, with the help of our farmers, ranchers, and third-party certifiers, helps us impact the lives of more than 416 million animals annually. Interested in getting G.A.P. certified? Click here to learn more about our standards or click here to fill out a pre-application and be contacted by someone from our farm team. We look forward to speaking with you.

Like this post? Have your own story you want to share? Let us know! To keep up-to-date with more posts like this, follow #GAPFarmLife on our social media feeds (including Instagram and Facebook)!

The post Turkey Brooding 101 appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

So what’s with pigs and mud anyway?

Did you know that pigs don’t have functional sweat glands? This little tidbit of information is great to have in your back pocket during trivia night at the local pub, but to a pig farmer, it’s way more important than just random knowledge. Without sweat glands, pigs cannot take advantage of evaporative cooling (that’s just a fancy way of explaining that wet skin makes you feel cooler) without supplemental moisture. That’s where the mud comes in! Mud keeps the pigs’ skin wet for longer than just plain water, giving them a prolonged cooling effect.

G.A.P.’s farm animal welfare standards require that farms maintain thermal comfort for their pigs – so providing pigs with access to mud in the summer is a good way to do this while allowing them to express their natural behavior. Mud has another benefit which is particularly important for pink pigs – it can double as a sunscreen, preventing sunburns for pigs that spend time outdoors. Pretty clever, right?

G.A.P.’s Standards in Action

Our partners at Rancho Llano Seco know all too well that keeping pigs cool and comfortable is paramount to good animal welfare, especially in the hot summer months in Chico, California.

They’ve worked hard to build barns that are designed to disperse heat – high ceilings and roll-up fabric siding aid in air flow and good ventilation through the barn. Keeping the air moving means that the heat doesn’t have a chance to build up around the pigs. In addition, the barns are equipped with misters that run for 5-minute intervals every 20 minutes during the daytime in the summers. This is enough time to get the pigs a bit wet, and then allow for an evaporation period. Remember, like sweat on humans, moisture on pigs needs to evaporate in order to effectively cool them down.

At this farm, pigs are also given access to an outdoor area, where mud wallows are provided by running sprinklers in certain areas. The sprinklers outside aren’t run on timers like they are indoors, but are used generously on really warm days. Pigs at Rancho Llano Seco are happy to spend time in the wallows and cover themselves with a nice layer of mud. They definitely know how to keep their cool when the mercury starts rising!

Being G.A.P. Animal Welfare Certified

Did you know? G.A.P.’s comprehensive animal welfare standards cover the entire lifecycle of the animal – from birth to slaughter. Check out one of our other blogs on pig farming and the standards around raising and weaning young pigs here. G.A.P. sets the standards, our valued partners implement them, and our third-party certifiers audit every farm to ensure the standards are being met. It’s an important process that helps us impact the lives of more than 416 million animals annually. At G.A.P., we value our loyal farm and ranch partners who work diligently to care for the animals and their environments everyday. Interested in getting G.A.P. certified? Click here to learn more about our standards or click here to fill out a pre-application and be contacted by someone from our farm team. We welcome your questions and interest.

Like this post? Have your own story you want to share? Let us know! To keep up-to-date with more posts like this, follow #GAPFarmLife on our social media feeds (including Instagram and Facebook)! Have a great summer!

The post The Dog Days of Summer appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

If you’ve been following the #GAPFarmLife blog series, you would have learned that for a turkey farmer, ‘litter’ means ‘bedding’. But for a pig farmer, the term ‘litter’ has a whole different meaning! When a momma pig (or “sow”) gives birth to a group of baby pigs (or “piglets”), this group is called a “litter”.

This week, we’re going to get you up to speed on some pig farming lingo and give you a peak at what piglet management looks like. (And that means management according to our G.A.P. farm animal welfare standards, of course!) To help us explain this process, we followed a sow and her litter over the course of seven weeks on one of our G.A.P. partner farms that is part of the North Carolina Natural Hog Growers Association.

The Piglets are Coming

To start, sows are pregnant for 114 days – but an easy way to remember that is: 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days! These “gestating sows” are given special care to make sure they are fit and healthy when the piglets arrive.

There are many different ways to house and manage sows and their piglets. Sows have a natural instinct to build a nest and give birth (or “farrow”) away from other animals. So, in the days before a sow’s expected farrowing, our partners at NC Hogs move their sows to individual outdoor huts, which are bedded with straw, allowing her to perform these natural behaviors.

From Birth to Weaning

On March 12, 2019, sow #111 gave birth to 14 piglets. Litter sizes can range from 8-20+, though the average is closer to 10-12 piglets per litter, so caring for them is a full-time job!

After birth, piglets learn how to access their mother’s milk very quickly. It doesn’t take long for the piglet to learn when their mom is ready to let down her milk. She starts by making slow, rhythmic grunts, and as her grunts speed up, the piglets know a meal is on its way! With the sow laying on her side, piglets form two layers in order for each piglet to get their own teat – and they will come back to the same teat every time.

A fully-grown sow can reach weights of 500+ lbs, but an average piglet only weighs between 4-5 lbs at birth! Farrowing pens are designed with protected areas to give the piglets space to get away from their mother if she lies down too quickly. These protected areas are often heated to keep the newborn piglets warm.

Once the piglets get to a certain age at this NC Hogs farm (for this litter, it was on day 16), they and the sow are moved to a group housing area with other sow-piglet groups. This type of group management gives the sow more space to move around and express natural behaviors, like maternal care and social interactions with other sows. It also allows the piglets to meet, greet and play with piglets from other litters.  

Though the piglets can mingle with other litters in group housing, they will often continue to rest and interact with their own litter mates.

Being acquainted with the other piglets in a group housing system prepares them for the next step – weaning. This is when all of the piglets are moved to a new area together away from the sows. After weaning, we then refer to them as “weaners” or “nursery pigs” and they will stay in these groups until they are ready to leave the farm. The litter from sow #111 was weaned at 47 days of age and have now started the next stage of their growing lives.

Like this post? Want to keep learning about our G.A.P. farm animal welfare standards in practice? Let us know! To keep up-to-date with more posts like this, follow #GAPFarmLife on social media (including Instagram and Facebook)! If you’re a pig farmer, let us know about your piglet and sow management successes.

The post Hogging the Spotlight appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

In poultry farming, when you hear “litter”, think “bedding” – not trash or garbage! Litter is a generic term used to describe the material spread on barn floors, that acts as bedding for turkeys.

(click for full size)

The main purpose of litter is to absorb moisture – from bird droppings or spilled water. The litter needs to be able to keep the surface dry in order to keep the birds dry. Litter that is not wet, clumped, or sticky means that turkeys have a comfortable place to rest and to perform natural behaviors like foraging, which includes pecking and scratching at the litter, and dustbathing. The type, depth, management and ultimately quality of litter can impact the health of the flock, so G.A.P. farmers pay close attention to their management practices that affect litter quality.

One of our supplier partners prefers to use wood shavings as their litter type. From the time the turkey poults are placed in the barn, they know it’s important to keep an eye on and manage the litter quality right from the start.

Maintaining optimum litter moisture content is an art – too dry and it gets dusty, too wet and ammonia can build up! Wet litter can also create an ideal breeding ground for bacteria. Turkey health, especially their foot health, can be impaired if too much moisture and bacteria gather in the litter. That’s why it’s important to adapt ventilation to manage humidity in the barns in order to keep the litter dry.

Tilling the Litter

In addition, farmers can add a top dressing of fresh litter or rototill the existing litter, in other words, churn it up to help it dry out. One of our supplier partners finds that rototilling is the best way to condition litter on their operations, which is often done while the birds are still in the barn. The farmers take special care to gather the turkeys on one half of the barn while the litter on the other half is rototilled – click the photo to see how they do it!

Like this post? Let us know! To keep up-to-date with more posts like this, follow #GAPFarmLife on social media! Are you a G.A.P.-certified farmer? Let us know what type of litter substrate you use!

The post G.A.P. Farm Life: “Litter”-ally Keeping Turkeys Comfortable appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

Farmers are often awake at the crack of dawn, trying to squeeze the most out of every day. Different management systems require different things, but attention to detail is important in all farming. Making sure the animals are safe, warm, fed, and watered are important all year-round, be that in the winter to increase bedding for warmth or the summer to ensure they stay cool. Think of newborn piglets that need extra care – for our partners, Karro Food Group, this means making sure that sows farrowing in outdoor huts are given sufficient bedding and nesting materials to help keep her piglets warm. In the photo below, you can see the farrowing huts along the left – these house one sow and all of her piglets, once they’re born. These huts can stay pretty warm with body heat from the sow and piglets, think of them as the engines that generate the heat and the huts are designed to keep that heat in the winter and cool in the summer. Clever insulation technology is used in farming just like that used in houses for people.

Some early morning checks in the winter involve checking water lines to make sure they haven’t frozen, adjusting diets to help keep pigs warm, making sure pens and huts are dry, checking for sick pigs, and the list goes on. We know G.A.P. farmers are passionate about their pigs – because nobody gets up early on winter mornings unless they care.

A winter limerick:

On cold winter days such as these,
Everyone else is dreaming of palm trees.
But farmers must rise and shine,
To check that the pigs are fine.
Thank goodness it’s not me who has to freeze.

We want to hear from you! If you are a farmer or rancher, what are some of the things you do to care for your animals in the winter?

Want to see more #GAPFarmLife posts? Follow the hashtag #GAPFarmLife on our Instagram page.

The post G.A.P. Farm Life: Snow Days appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.

Depending on where the information comes from, farming is painted in either an exceptionally negative or exceptionally positive light. You’ve probably become used to seeing either animals piled in cages on top of each other, or cows dotted along a pasture on a bright, sunny day with daisies in the foreground. It’s hard to know what normal looks like when you’ve only been given two extremes.

That’s why we created G.A.P. Farm Life. Our consumers deserve to know what farmers and ranchers do day-in and day-out to take care of animals certified to our G.A.P. animal welfare standards. After all, in order to trust our label, you have to understand our process. Spoiler Alert: our standards are based in science, but practical enough to be implemented consistently on all G.A.P. farms. And we mean, ALL farms. We make sure each and every one of our G.A.P.-certified farms are audited so we know our standards are being met.

For the next few months, we’re going to let our #GAPFarmLife social media stories and blog posts open the farm gates to show you our program in action.

From seemingly mundane to unquestionably interesting topics, we will highlight a wide variety of farming practices in an effort to shed some light on this otherwise mysterious industry. Check out our next few blogs and these Instagram posts to get a taste of #GAPFarmLife:

• Snow Days (a day in the life of a pig farmer)
• The Grass is Always Greener…In the Haybale (winter feeding on a beef cattle ranch)

We’ve got stories to tell, and lots of partners to highlight in the coming months, so be sure to follow us on Instagram, check our website for new articles, and subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Have a topic or question you want to learn more about? Follow #GAPFarmLife on Instagram and comment or message us. Are you a G.A.P.-certified producer willing to be a part of our story? Email info@globalanimalpartnership.org to find out how you can participate! (Psst… We’re offering program incentives for partners willing to share their photos and stories.)

So, until next time, remember you can learn more about our labeling program at certifiedGAP.org. And when you’re in the grocery store, remember to #MakeItGAP!

The post G.A.P. Farm Life: A Peek Inside G.A.P. Certified Farms appeared first on Global Animal Partnership.