Following the sound of PDG Nancy’s bell at 5:45 PM -

• the reading of the District Land Acknowledgement Statement by President Doug,

• the video of O Canada sung in the Mi’kmaq language by 11-year-old Kalolin Johnson (accompanied by Ryan MacNeil on bagpipe and Anna Ludlow on violin at the closing of the Halifax Canada Games on February 27, 2011) and

• the Thought of the Week from Paul Harris in 1915 “Smiles cost nothing, but they illuminate life’s pathway wonderfully.”

ED WERBOWSKI SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT – Gabriel Ajero

Cathy Skene introduced Gabriel Ajero (pronounced Ahero), the Ed Werbowski Scholarship recipient from Oak Park High School. His plan is to take two years of Engineering at the University of Manitoba then study biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto. Gab thanked the club for choosing him for the Ed Werbowski award because it helps him out and makes him “honoured and happy”. He mentioned that he had two study options – one was to get a 4-year Engineering degree in Manitoba then get a Master’s degree in biomedical engineering at another University (since U of M doesn’t offer it) or take two years of undergraduate engineering in Manitoba and complete the degree as a biomedical undergraduate student at U of T. He indicated that he was born in the Philippines (in Manila) and came to Canada in 2013 when he was 10 years old. He hasn’t been back to Manila since then. His hobbies include playing basketball and playing guitar, but COVID has prevented him from playing any sports at Oak Park HS for over a year. He was a cadet while in Grades 9 & 10, (selling poppies by Safeway on Grant), worked as a waiter in CanadInns during their yearly Chicken Dinner Fest, and as an altar server for two years at St Paul’s Church. Jagdish, Cathy and President Doug wished him well in his studies.

ROTARY MOMENTS

1. The final webinar in the Rotary International’s accountability and inclusion series, titled: Planning for an Inclusive Future will take place on Thursday, 29 July, at 11:00 am Central time. Registration is now open online. https://rotary-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/6416249811511/WN_ifIEI5qIRxSE715hFT3vdg

2. Chase the Ace: Thursday was the draw for Raffle Week Fifteen (15): Eloise Lyon (Glenn’s partner) was the winner of the week’s jackpot ($32.00).

3. The Selkirk Rotary Newsletter (called the SPOKE) posted information about Assiniboine Forest / Chase the Ace this week. President Doug can email it to you if you haven’t seen it.

4. Jagdish showed a picture of a family friend, Murli Pendharkar a member of the Rotary Club of Kelowna for over 30 years (and a past president) who recently passed away at the age of 91 after a long career in education, a political life and spearheading more than 40 Rotary projects for schools in India.

5. PDG Jim reminded everyone that the Lobsterfest is 2 months away and urged members to sell more tickets for the event. Three hundred and nineteen tickets have been sold so far, almost 60% of them have been sold to people who have never attended our Lobster Dinners in person.

6. PDG Nancy added that the Lobsterfest event needs more door prizes and encouraged members to obtain donations - prizes or cash.

PDG Nancy read Rick’s biography. Rick was born and raised in Holland, MB on a small grain and animal farm established by his grandfather. He attended Red River College after high school and became a Red Seal Carpenter, like his dad. Together, they built just over 200 homes in the Brandon and Westman area. In 2015 he expanded the farm and built a new barn that can house 10,000 laying hens. Rick is currently a Director for Area 2 of the Manitoba Egg Farmers and the councillor for the rural municipality of Victoria. His wife Lisa works at the local high school and their three children (ages 10, 12 and 14) all are involved in the egg operation as well as in hockey.

Rick indicated that his operation has a quota for 7,000 laying hens and once a week the eggs are picked up at the farm and taken to Burnbrae (the grading station they use). The hens are fed a vegetarian high Vitamin D diet. At Sobey’s and Safeway, they are labeled as “Nature’s Best”. Every egg produced in Manitoba is sold in Manitoba, although some eggs are exported to breakers and to dry markets.

Their barn is very automated, requiring only about 2 hours a day of chores – which involves checking the birds, gathering the eggs and putting them into the cooler. The children seem to enjoy helping with this. A control panel controls their feed and water, lighting, and ventilation. If there’s ever an issue in the barn, a text or email message is sent out identifying the issue and someone then goes to correct it. Lots of ventilation is needed when it’s hot outside.

There are 170 egg and pullet producers in Manitoba. About half of the egg producers are also pullet producers as well. There are 2-3 hatcheries which supply chicks to the pullet farmers (where hens are raised until they are 19 weeks old – when they start laying eggs). The hens are kept in the barn for a full year, then transported to Minneapolis to be processed.

Rick is very happy with the supply-management system, which worked well when COVID 19 adversely affected the number of eggs sold. Some barns were de-populated earlier than they normally would have been in order to keep at par with storage space. There was no food wasted on egg farms. Each egg farmer has a quota – and can purchase extra quota if they want to expand.

In response to questions, we learned the following:

• The old style of caging the birds is being phased out. Rick’s barn has an enriched cage system in which an area that is two feet wide and 9 feet long has perches and nest pads to comfortably house 15-16 birds. Ventilation and constant removal of manure keeps the ammonia level in the cages to “basically zero”. Each “house” has 16 feet of perches for the birds.

• There are no roosters in with the hens.

• The advertising team of Claire and Elizabeth is doing an amazing job of promoting the industry and fresh eggs. 99% of the egg farms in Manitoba are family run.

• With 7,000 laying hens, the typical egg production is around 6,800 to 6,900 per day. The Lee’s egg farm typically produces 3 million eggs per year.

• Calcium is provided in the hens’ feed either in the form of oyster shells or bone meal of some type. A nutritionist comes to the barn weekly or biweekly to weigh a sampling of hens to keep an eye on their body weight (typically 1600 grams) in order to produce a medium to large egg. Protein content in the feed is increased to raise the hen weight or reduced to lower the hen weight. As the birds get older, the eggshells get thinner and that’s when extra calcium is added to the meal to maintain the shell quality.

• Eggs in the US are less expensive than eggs in Manitoba due to over-supply, resulting in a cutthroat market - because they do not manage the egg supply in the US. There are a couple of producers in the US that have more birds than all of Canada does.

• Curtains covering the nesting area and a nest pad (where the eggs fall onto the belts) are mimicking the nesting boxes that hens in an old-style chicken coop would use to lay their eggs. The control panel has an “egg advance” feature that moves the belt about 3 feet every two hours or so, taking the eggs away to leave room for more hens to lay their eggs. This keeps the eggs from “beating up against each other”

• A couple of years ago the egg producers started a Canada-wide Egg Quality Assurance (EQA) program

• There is no difference in the quality of brown eggs and white eggs – brown-feathered hens lay brown eggs and white-feathered hens lay white eggs. The quality of the egg depends on what the quality of feed that the hen gets.

• Although the hours for doing chores are quite low (2 hours per day), the commitment for egg farmers requires 365 days per year of care.

• Although COVID-19 does not affect birds, the biosecurity of operation requires a change of shoes and change of clothes before entering the barn and showering as one leaves the barn to get dressed into your clothes for the rest of the day.

• Due to the automation, one person can pretty much run the egg operation – although help with gathering the eggs in the collecting room is appreciated to remove cracked or leaking eggs that are being sent to the packer.

• The animal welfare part of running an egg farm has improved since he started operations in 2015. Most egg farms in Canada are operated by families who are dedicated to their birds.

• There is no limit to the size of a quota for an egg farm.

• The grading stations in Winnipeg pick up the eggs from the farm once a week – every Wednesday. The grading stations sort the eggs and then ship them off to the supermarkets.

• Rick’s egg barn has an 80 KW back-up generator powered by a 50 HP John Deere motor located in a room in the barn to generate electrical power in the event of a power outage on the farm. It cuts in automatically if the power is off for 6 seconds. Using solar panels to run the operation would have cost over $300,000 when Rick looked into it.

• Manitoba Egg Farmers advertising shows families. Currently, Rick’s family farm is featured on the back of a bus.

• Rick gets his hens (White Leghorn variety) from the Steinbach hatchery.

PDG Ed thanked Rick for his presentation and expressed appreciation for the work that is done to get eggs onto one’s table. Things are quite different from when he was a member of the Holland 4H Poultry Club.