Swine 15 Flashcards
Principles of health management for swine
- Keep disease out
- Eradicate diseases if feasible
- Control the endemic infectious diseases by maximizing immunity and minimizing challenge
- Recognize that many health problems aren’t primarily infectious and caused by combination of factors
- Use production data
how to keep disease out
Biosecurity
what is the challenge of biosecurity balance
Challenge is to get the
right balance
* Not enough – disease
gets in
* Too much – expensive
and interferes with farm function
Why is monitoring an important component of biosecurity?
Biosecurity audits
- Early diagnosis of new/introduced disease(s)
> Can make biosecurity changes - It helps tell us how we are doing
> Can make biosecurity changes - Promotes the importance of biosecurity
> Can make biosecurity changes
Eradication of PED from a farrow-to- finish farm, steps:
- Close the herd (no new entry of breeding replacement stock)
- Purposely expose all the sows to the disease (herd immunity)
- Create a gap in production somehow, so that the nursery can be depopulated and cleaned
- Weaned pigs will have passive immunity, as it disappears, need to ensure they don’t become exposed to the virus
Some health problems can’t be eliminated and must be controlled on the farm
-whats our general strategy?
Some health problems can’t be eliminated and must be controlled on the farm
- If endemic disease has a major infectious component, control by maximizing immunity and minimizing challenge
main strategies to maximize immunity, minimiuze challenge
Generally need both approaches BUT…..
- Some diseases respond better to immunization
> E.g., porcine circovirus associated disease
- Some diseases respond better to sanitation > E.g., coccidiosis
how can study of production records help us?
n To identify health problems
n To measure response to treatment
n To develop control strategies
n To perform cost-benefit analysis
Measure to get better!
how have computerized production records changed management?
- In North America, herd size dramatically increased in the 1980s coinciding with widespread use of the personal computer
- Analyzing production data has become an essential part of swine health management
is looking at production records enough to understand problems?
Production records are just a part of monitoring herds to spot health problems
n Need to walk through barns, examine pigs and environment
n Post-mortem examinations
n Serology and other sampling
n Abattoir reports
Monitoring Clinical & Subclinical Disease - strategies:
Record number of pigs:
- treated
- culled or euthanized
- that died
- that did not make 3.5 kg at weaning or 115 kg at 6 months of age
health monitoring includes inpection of:
-pigs
-environment
> eg. behaviours, diseases can be related to this
what info does serological monitoring give us?
Is the herd free of a specific disease?
- a positive animal = positive herd
> Test sufficient animals to be confident in your results
> How many?
> What if low prevalence of disease?
- When are the pigs becoming infected?
> Serial blood tests or multiple ages on one day
who should you give a serological test? what else do you need to understand about your test?
Animals likely to be positive:
– Sick or coughing
– Age likely to be positive
– Multiple pens / multiple rooms
What else do you need to understand?
– Type of test: what is it measuring
* viremia vs. antibody titre
– Sensitivity and specificity of test
– What sample to take
how to collect an oral fluids sample:
- Use cotton rope
- Adjust length to pig size
- Extract fluid from rope
- Pour fluid into a tube - chill or freeze
- Submit to lab for testing
±75% of pigs in a pen of 25-30 will interact with the rope in 20-30 minutes
Work with Pig Behaviour
* Pigs explore the world in bites and chews.
* Train (non-threatening exploration), then collect
* Put the rope in cleanest part of the pen – away from drinkers and feeders
* Collect samples in the morning when pigs most active
