Animal safety and care is our focus in this last installment of our series of posts, giving you the story of chicken- from gate to plate. Canadian chickens are raised in a proper environment of large barns, which are heated and well ventilated. Our chickens are not kept in cages and roam freely on floors that are covered with soft, dry bedding or litter. They are given clean water and feed. Between 6 and 8 weeks in the barns, the chickens are transported to the processing plants in trucks designed for shipping poultry with a flock sheet. A flock sheet is a form used by farmers to record specific information about such things as feed, any medications used, number of birds placed, etc. The flock sheet also serves as the farmers' assurance to the other links in the food chain that the birds have been produced in accordance with the strictest government and industry guidelines and regulations. At the processing plant, an inspector checks every chicken, making sure the chickens are healthy, safe and are ready to be sold to the consumer. After each flock has left the barn for the processing plants, the barn, the floor and the equipment are disinfected and the litter is changed. The barns are left vacant for nearly a week before a new flock arrives. Chicken farmers across Canada follow a strict on-farm food safety program, which sets the standards for raising the chicken Canadians trust. Stringent record keeping is an important component of on-farm food safety and allows Canadian chicken farmers to participate in quality control, traceability, and disease control. Canada's chicken farmers firmly believe that animals should be treated with care. In fact, for the last 20 years, all industry partners have worked to develop guidelines and regulations governing animal care practices in Canada. We work together to ensure that animals experience the least amount of stress possible.