
Top 3 Protective Strategies for Animal Care
These three strategies are especially crucial in this age of larger operations, labor challenges, public scrutiny and undercover activists: 1. Employee training – Employee training and written protocols are paramount. The goal is to train your employees to do the right thing all the time.The most effective programs provide an on-demand, virtual service that enables clients to train, test and track their employees on daily farm activities, including animal care, job duties, standard operating procedures, company values and more. Training and testing are typically offered in both English and Spanish.2. Risk monitoring – Managers can’t be everywhere at once, but you still need to make sure your protocols are followed and your assets protected.
Risk monitoring captures critical operational data remotely via cameras mounted in your facility. As a third-party objective evaluator, we monitor high-risk areas of your operation each day to act as a second set of eyes. Trained technicians monitor animal well-being, biosecurity, production efficiency, site security and access control and worker safety.
Risk monitoring not only uncovers procedural drift and other opportunities for improvement but also provide positive feedback and training opportunities.
3. Crisis management – If you can’t prevent a crisis, you can minimize potential damage by preparing in advance. It is important to have a written plan ahead of time that dictates how you and your team will respond in a crisis.It’s imperative that you get your management team trained to develop emergency action plans from pre-existing templates, coached on how to work with news media, as well as educated on how to manage a crisis and training employees on how to react to a crisis. Being proactive will save you time and stress if an emergency strikes. Preemptive crisis training can improve your crisis performance and reduce negative impacts.
Enhance Animal Welfare with Analysis
Following unfortunate animal welfare events, many of our conversations have been with farmers that already participate in industry standard animal well-being programs that provide animal welfare standards, training, audits and more. In the dairy industry, we know that more than 98% of the U.S. milk supply comes from farms participating in the National Dairy FARM (Farmers Assuring Responsible Management) Animal Care Program. FARM Animal Care is an important industry-driven program that outlines best practices, including animal health from birth to end of life, housing, nutrition, transportation and handling.