Articles - Pig health

In the last 4 batches of weaned piglets, the farmer saw around 3% of anorexic and lethargic piglets. All the treatments he tried failed (amoxicillin or florfenicol injections), and finally the piglets died.

ASF spreads mainly through the movement of infected pork and other animal products, as well as live animals, which includes wild boar.

Monitoring protocols in boar studs are often insufficient to timely detect an infection.

Four virus lineages, having clearly distinguishable HA, are currently co-circulating in European pigs and can be considered as enzootic viruses, even if their relative prevalence and level of incidence vary from one country to another.

After the clinical and serological evaluation it is decided to vaccinate against PRRSV, with which we achieve a gradual improvement in the health status on the farm. Some months later, a severe cough appears in the fattening pigs that later also appears in the nursery and in the sows.

The first cause of PCV vaccine failure is the purchase and use of generic vaccine of low quality and titre, but the exact cause of the failures can occur in various forms.

ASF is now firmly established in some areas of the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, where it is causing considerable trade disruptions, plus having a devastating impact on small-scale pig farmers.

The veterinarian is called from a new established herd in Brittany because some clinical signs appear on gilts from the two first deliveries introduced in the farm.

During 2012 PCV2 variants or mutants (mPCV2) appeared in the USA and were frequently associated with PCV-associated diseases. The possibility of lack of cross-protection of commercial vaccines against mPCV2 is now of major concern.

The first goal of the project is to control PRRSv-infections in order to produce negative offspring.

The interaction between M. hyopneumoniae and its host make M. hyopneumoniae one of the most important contributors to porcine respiratory disease.

Reducing piglets mingling in farrowing and nursery facilities was found to delay the infectious process leading to a lower number of early infections. Clustering piglets by litter in small units after weaning also decreased significantly the probability of early infection.

Frequent deaths and cases of disease with typical “diamond-skin” lesions appeared in fattening pigs although they were vaccinated against Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae.

Pathogens that are transmitted mostly through direct, pig to pig, contact are generally contained with today’s biosecurity programs and pig flow strategies. However, pathogens using multiple routes of transmission seem to evade standard biosecurity programs.

A risk of airborne transmission of PRRSV is real, and air filtration can significantly reduce its risk. Area regional approach on PRRSV control/elimination indicates our direction where we should move forward in future.

About 50% of the vehicles used for transporting pigs in the United States are not washed between loads, so this article evaluates the ability of heating treatments to inactivate PRRSv present in manure-contaminated environments.

What further increases profitability in pig production is not minimizing costs, but maximizing revenue.

Despite the evident usefulness of laboratory diagnosis, we must not forget that a field necropsy allows us to us recover part of the loss caused by the death of the animal.

This farm produces its own gilts from grandmother sows, but taking advantage of the adaptation to meet the needs of the welfare law it was decided to increase its capacity from 600 sows to 1,200.

Recent reports still show high prevalence of the pathogen in most pig producing countries.

Clinical disease and outcome following PRRS infection has significant inherited components.

The abattoir is a useful endpoint to collect data on herd health status and a valuable tool for monitoring the effect of disease control measures.

PCV2 vaccination of the gilts prior to insemination with PCV2 spiked-semen showed a clear decrease of viral load in the gilts as well as a much lower viral excretion that were compatible with foetus protection.

Is the right strategy to get a farm stable, that is, control clinical signs reducing the economic impact of the disease; or should a farm adopt strategies to go “negative”? As for other questions in the epidemiological field, our answer is “it depends”.