Articles - Pig health

The litter size of the recent and the last farrowing batches was significantly reduced, and the suckling pigs showed an obvious varying weight, condition and viability.

The PCV2 has been associated, in an ongoing way and throughout time, with more pathologies called, collectively, diseases associated with the PCV2 (PCVDs): PCV2 systemic disease, PCV2 lung disease, PCV2 enteric disease, PCV2 reproductive disease,PCV2 subclinical infection and porcine dermatitis and nephropaty syndrome.

Novelties about the excretion routes, the transmission routes, the risk factors, etc., and explanation about how the PCV2 becomes a pathogenic virus.

Among the numerous genetically distinct isolates that are identified in high pig density areas every year, only a few are able to be transmitted between herds and even less able to widely spread and dominate the entire region or system.

In a factory farm located in Mexico an increase in the mortality in the farrowing quarters was seen, and this coincides with temperature and relative humidity increases.

The nervous system symptomatology is characterized by some cases of meningitis and opistothonus, dizziness and serious deep depression in a great number of animals. The necropsy shows, in all the cases, a serious lung congestion and an enteritis with a variable seriousness with a more or less important involvement of the mesenteric lymph nodes.

The most effective way of avoiding the production losses associated with the PCV2 consists in avoiding the appearance of the viraemia by inducing a passive or an active immunity that minimizes the circulation of the virus in the farm.

There are 3 potential options to stabilize BTW herds following an outbreak that have all proven successful over time. They have very different cost and risk profiles and a through economic assessment is needed to determine what the best course of action is for each new outbreak.

This case describes an acute outbreak of gastric ulcers in pigs of 30-40 kg live weight that affected 38 farms throughout a year and that presented mortalities from a 5% up to a 40% depending on the severity of the cases.

This study, based on some 120,000 sows, quantifies the reduction of the risk of introducing PRRS viruses when using air filtering.

After the banning of antibiotics as growth promoters, there was an increase in their total consumption due to the therapeutics treatments...

The European Commission is reviewing and consulting how antimicrobials are used in veterinary medicine following the release of their 12 point programme in 2011. Present and future situation of antimicrobial use in the European Community is analysed.

How do we determine clinical significance? One way is to evaluate how many individuals need to be treated in order to obtain one more favorable outcome. This is the concept behind Number Needed to Treat (NNT).

It was developed in USA as a way to improve communication of what needed to be done to improve the chances of success in stabilizing and managing breeding herds.

The pig farm management team in charge of the post-weaned piglet nursery areas on these wean-to-finish sites has found serious problems with diarrhoea in recent batches of piglets arriving from the breeding farms.

Interventions can only reduce but not eradicate Salmonella from the herd. This emphasises the importance of trying to avoid introduction especially Salmonella Typhimurium or Salmonella Derby.

EFSA estimates that, across the EU, up to 27% of human Salmonellosis cases may be attributed to pig meat.

In July 2010 a severe respiratory disease occurred in the farm: coughing in gilts, and coughing and depression in fatteners concomitantly to an increase of the mean stillborn and mummified piglet rate in a batch of sows.

In this article Salmonella critical contamination points in the abattoir will be analyzed, as well as the measures that can be taken with regard to them.

The risk of contamination by Salmonella increases along the food chain, reaching its maximum in the abattoir. So, the abattoir is one of the points in which the actions carried out can be most effective.

A summary of current knowledge to address frequently asked questions from producers and practitioners on PCV2-associated reproductive disease.

The “normal” sporadic and unexplained abortion rate in pigs is approximately 1 to 2 % of pigs that are mated and achieve a pregnancy.

When exposed, the pigs get infected in less time than the length of the transportation and the waiting period (prior to the slaughter) in the abattoir.

Two species of Brachyspira are well-recognized pathogens of pigs: B pilosicoli and B. hyodysenteriae. Recently, dysentery-like disease has been reported in association with infection by strongly beta-hemolytic spirochetes which are not identified as B. hyodysenteriae.