Articles - Pig health

Nowadays several laboratory techniques allow to evaluate the cellular immune response.

Key swine veterinary practitioners describe the “PRRS-ception” of this disease in the most important pork producing regions.

Prevention against ASF involves farmers, farm staff, veterinarians, lorry drivers, hunters and the Official Veterinary Services.

Establishing Day 0 is a crucial step in disease control and elimination programs and should be carefully performed by swine health professionals.

This article discuss about the protection of the placenta, the colostrum, the immunity conferred by milk and the congenital acquired immunity of the piglet.

There is an increase of respiratory distress and loss of body condition with an increase of mortality in the weaning and growing pigs…

Montse Torremorell speaks about different alternatives that are being explored to obtain live animal samples at a reasonable cost.

Changes on the source of replacement animals are always difficult decisions. Monitoring through testing before the introduction of the new animals into the farm is not sufficient.

The immune, endocrine and central nervous systems communicate through anatomical and hormonal-neuropeptides pathways.

Most infections with occupational diseases occur at slaughter, when humans handle potentially infected meat or body fluids. We’ll introduce two major ones here: erysipelas and S. suis infection.

Returns increase in a PRRS-positive farm in the middle of a census increase plus a change of management in the batch farrowing system, from 3 weeks to 1.

Some of the take-home messages of this article are: M. hyo transmits slowly within exposed populations, but pigs can shed for long periods of time.

Total born, use of toxin binder, farrowing assistance and health status show an association with sow mortality due to uterine prolapses.

Joan Aparicio and Lluís Ferrer share their experience on how to prepare the replacement animals with Joan Wennberg.

The skin is the first defensive line, as is the largest organ of the body.

Enric Marco comments on the practical implications of a recent research article about PEDv excretion in semen.

Intestinal integrity is just as relevant as vaccination protocols in inducing adequate immunity to environmental challenges.

Vitamin D₃ plays a central role in the immune response of swine . 25-OH D₃ may be a more efficient source to improve vitamin D status of pigs than cholecalciferol.

Percentage of prolapsed sows has consistently increased every year, from 4.8 in 2012 to 10.2% in 2016.

Gilt acclimation was performed in 78% surveyed European farms; vaccination, alone or combined with natural exposure to infected animals, was the main used strategy.

It is very important to analyze new PRRSV sequences against a broad reference set representing the farm, the system and the region, as well as the sequences of available commercial vaccines (this will make it possible to differentiate between field and vaccine strains).

The average piglet birth weight from the 3 groups of vaccinated sows was statistically higher than that from the unvaccinated sows.

Three factors must be taken into account when defining the viability of the elimination of M. hyopneumoniae on each farm: negative replacements, cost and return on investment, and risk of re-infection.

The diseases shared by livestock and wildlife involve many players: mainly farmers, but also hunters and different public administrations.