The Animal's Welfare: The priority of our breeding.
The type of stables, housing conditions and food are the elements that most affect animal welfare and environmental sustainability. The Chiari brothers have thus designed and built a particular type of shelter: the stables have an orientation such as to protect the animals from the cold winds of the north and let the sunlight from the east penetrate. In addition, the upper cover is equipped with peripheral openings to circulate the air and a transparent central lane that allows the infiltration of sunlight. In addition to exposure, to create an optimal internal microclimate, the shelters are equipped with a conditioning system that is activated in the summer to keep temperatures below 25 degrees, so as to avoid stress and suffering situations for livestock and newspapers equipped with protective tents to protect animals from winter winds. Moreover, the presence of open side walls allows the recirculation of air inside the shelters, and gives the possibility to the animals to live in a healthier environment from the hygienic-sanitary point of view.
Particular attention is also given to housing conditions. The animals are raised in free housing, arranged in boxes where they are free to move. Each box can contain up to a maximum of 10/11 items separated by gender and age so as to avoid situations of conflict between male subjects as much as possible. To avoid stress accumulations and improve the well-being conditions, the stables are equipped with a self-cleaning litter system. Through this mechanism inside the boxes never enter the operators, thus avoiding that the animals are subjected to stress due to the presence of foreign subjects in their environment.
Another fundamental parameter that affects both animal welfare and the quality of meat is nutrition. It is very important that food is always available and therefore the animal can eat at any time of the day and that the food ration is clean and free of microorganisms that can damage the animal's organism. The company has indeed found that a clean and constant diet improves digestibility and consequently increases the yield of the animal.
Fattoria Fontetto has set a type of feeding at "km. 0 "composed only of indigenous products; with a type of rationing almost free of corn and soy to eliminate the risk of the presence of GMO ingredients and to safeguard environmental sustainability, avoiding the exploitation of resources for crops that require particular amounts of water and pesticide treatments.