Articles - Pig health

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.

It is very important to establish a series of preventive measures to prevent a worsening health status with the introduction of new serotypes.

Given the high prevalence of the infection due to the PCV2 and its presence in healthy and sick animals, the serological tests against this pathogen have been questioned as a diagnostic test.

The farms can be free from PRRS, enzootic pneumonia, atrophic rhinitis, pleuropneumonia, scabies, swine dysentery, and so on. However, why is it we are still unable to characterize farms as Salmonella-free?

75% of slaughtered pigs had their livers discarded due to lesions characteristic of parasitic migration.

The thermographic cameras can measure the temperature in all the image with resolutions that are equivalent to 19,200 infrared thermometers at the same time.

This chapter is intended as a roadmap for the development of a Salmonella control program for factories, a program whose aim should be to minimize Salmonella contamination, of any and all serotypes.

The clinical profile seen to date of ASF in Russia and neighboring countries is a typical acute disease. The animals die between 7 and 15 days post-infection and the symptoms observed include fever, huddling together due to cold, and injuries described above.

There was an increase of repetitions in females (at 17-28 days, cyclic and acyclic, with a repeat rate of 22%) and mucous-like, white to brown (chocolate) vulvovaginal discharge hours after artificial insemination.

Feed is one of the risk factors in the epidemiology of salmonellosis and therefore, control of pathogens in the feed should continue to be considered an essential component of any control program for swine salmonellosis.

Vitamin D is normally produced following skin exposure to ultraviolet-B. Since most piglets (and humans too!) are raised in climate controlled housing and born year-round, direct access to sunshine is often limited, even in the summer. Fortunately, vitamin D can be added to diets to meet the animals' need for vitamin D.

The semen was destined for Japan which requires the donor boar to be tested with negative results within 60 days prior to collection for export for: Vesicular Stomatitis, Aujesky’s disease, PRRS, Brucellosis, Leptospirosis, and Tuberculosis.