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JUNE 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


37 BCYF tour highlights fish and dairy management


Tours offer important lessons for young farmers harvesting.”


by RONDA PAYNE AGASSIZ – BC Young


Farmers is more than a group with similar agricultural interests; it’s a team of professional farmers with a desire to learn more about all aspects of the industry. The organization’s late April tour in Agassiz was the third Young Farmers tour and stops included the Golden Eagle Fish Farm, UBC Research Centre with a focus on dairy cows, and The Farm House Natural Cheeses. With the recent addition of fish farmers to the BC Agriculture Council, the tour of four-year-old Golden Eagle Fish Farm was perfectly timed to see the industry first-hand. Alex Brooks, site manager, and fellow employee (and Alex’s cousin) Jordan Brooks answered questions while explaining the operation which has preventative bio- security in place for fish stock safety.


The freshwater tanks hold about 270 cubic meters of water and are nine feet deep with a 36 foot diameter. To prevent pressure from bursting the tanks while assisting with temperature control, each tank is buried about six feet into the ground, with the remaining three feet above the surface. They hold from 10,000 to 18,000 coho, depending upon the age of the fish, and have an artificial current. “These tanks are like silos,”


Alex says.


Hatchlings come from Sechelt via tanker truck. The fish at Golden Eagle mature at 18 months and experience about a 10% mortality rate. This includes the fish that are culled due to fungal infections that also occur in the wild if injury results in losing the protective slime along their scales. Mortalities are used as fertilizer and the tanks are checked twice a day. As the fish age, they are


moved to different tanks where their numbers are reduced to allow for their increased size. Harvest occurs when fish


are about four to six pounds and, like cattle, the manual “bonk and bleed” method is used where fish are struck on the head (stunned) then bled out. They are then sent, head on, to the Richmond-based processing plant under the Federated Co-ops umbrella. “We hit them on the top of the head to reduce stress and lactic acid,” notes Alex. “We harvest probably 2,000 fish a month when we’re


Supplemental


oxygen is important along with recirculation and filtration systems.


The fish require


more than 60% to 70% oxygen saturation to survive. Healthy levels are 80% to 100%. “We inject that


oxygen [from the on-site liquid oxygen tower] into the water to support the fish,” Jordan says. Drains are located at the bottom and on the sides of the tanks to take water out, run it through a drum filter, followed by biofilters before being re- oxygenated and returned to the tanks. “Everything we do is on


BC Young Farmers directors Jillian Robbins of K&M Farms and Melissa Anderson of Aldor Acres enjoying the goats at The Farm House Natural Cheeses, one of several stops on the BCYF tour in April. RONDA PAYNE PHOTOS


land, and everything is recycled water,” explains Jordan. A short drive from Golden


Eagle Fish Farm is the UBC Research Centre dairy farm where students discussed their research projects and


how they are making a difference in real-life dairy applications. A PhD student of UBC’s animal welfare program, Christine Sumner discussed colostrum management and immunity. “We want to make sure the colostrum is a quality product,” Sumner says. “It


tends to be an area with a lot of problems.” As part of her study, 18 farmers measured colostrum. Sumner collected and shared data in a comparative analysis over a 34-week period. “[The farmers] got a lot of data that’s not normally available,” she says. “We found they liked having this data.”


As a result, some of the farms continued testing colostrum on their own after the study concluded. Sumner found the speed of getting the colostrum into the calf is the prime issue – within the four-hour period after birth is ideal. She points


See COLOSTRUM on next page o


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