Feedstuffs in Focus
Feedstuffs in Focus is a weekly look at the hot issues in the livestock, poultry, grain and feed industries. Join us as we talk with industry influencers, experts and leaders about trends and more. Feedstuffs in Focus is produced by the team at Feedstuffs.
Feedstuffs in Focus
Swine respiratory disease risk can be minimized, eliminated
Dr. Luke Strehle of Nebraska Vet Services, a full-service mixed animal practice based in West Point, Nebraska, joins us to share his insight on swine respiratory pathogens – how to reduce and eliminate their risk as well what interventions are available to manage pig health.
This episode is brought to you by Pharmgate Animal Health, a growing business that puts livestock first. Pharmgate provides a proven portfolio of technically supported, high-quality products that are the foundation of custom herd health protocols. By offering multiple options for active ingredients, concentrations, and administration routes, Pharmgate provides you with choices to fit your needs backed by a team with technical expertise to get the results you want.
Welcome to Feedstuffs in Focus, our podcast taking a look at the big issues affecting the livestock, poultry grain and animal feed industries. I'm your host, sarah Muirhead. This episode is brought to you by FarmGate Animal Health, a growing business that puts livestock first. Farmgate Animal Health, a growing business that puts livestock first. Farmgate provides a proven portfolio of technically supported, high-quality products that are the foundation of custom herd health protocols. By offering multiple options for active ingredients, concentrations and administration routes, farmgate provides you with the choices to fit your needs, backed by a team with technical expertise to get the results you want. Dr Luke Straley of Nebraska Vet Services, a full-service mixed animal practice based in West Point Nebraska, joins us in this episode of Feedstuffs in Focus to share his insight on swine respiratory pathogens, how to reduce and eliminate their risk, as well as what interventions are available to manage pig health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me on today. So again, name is Luke Straley, veterinary and Nebraska Vet Services. In West Point, nebraska, we're a 12 doctor of mixed animal practice. In Northeast Nebraska we have again we're taking care of we're a mixed animal practice. We're taking care of mixed animal practice. We're taking care of swine, beef, feedlot, dairy, we've got an embryo transfer business as well as companion animal medicine as well. So on the swine side, there's two of us here practicing swine medicine and we're overseeing around 30,000 sows and about a million pigs annually at our practice. We're also a part of Heritage Vet Partners, which is a combination of mixed animal clinics. We're up to about 20 clinics now with over 100 veterinarians In all. There's about a half a dozen of us practicing swine medicine in that group across Nebraska, minnesota, iowa, south Dakota, kansas, missouri, illinois and Indiana. So yeah, our producers would be primarily independent producers anywhere from 50 to 5,000 sows, you know, like I said, mostly independent producers with varying degrees of issues.
Speaker 1:So let's talk pigs here today. During the winter months, tell us how producers are successful in reducing or eliminating the risk of lateral disease introduction within your sow systems.
Speaker 2:Absolutely when it comes to disease prevention and management. Can't discuss that without saying biosecurity prevention and management. Can't discuss that without saying biosecurity. Biosecurity is a very blanket term for anything we can do, but any step that we can put into place that mitigates the risk of introducing a pathogen is very important. Not every facility is set up for the pristine shower in, shower out type of biosecurity. So sometimes folks are limited to thinking that if they can't get that accomplished then biosecurity is out of the equation for them.
Speaker 2:But really it comes down to the importance of understanding lines of separation whether that's with a Dutch entry and a bench entry type system or clothes changing, but really just designating where is that line of separation where I can prevent from introducing a new disease onto my farm?
Speaker 2:So it's really important not to throw your hands in the air from the biosecurity setting and say I can't implement a shower-in shower-out, so I can't practice biosecurity Beyond that, just the personnel entering and exiting the farm on a daily basis. It's really important to understand transport biosecurity and making sure that our haulers and trucks and equipment that we're using for transporting the animals are clean when they show up to the farm using for transporting the animals are clean when they show up to the farm and making sure that, if we are having to chore multiple facilities and just beyond the sow farm, that we're choring those from youngest to oldest, or understanding disease statuses throughout the week and how we're moving through those farms and those systems. So the blanket term of biosecurity can be applied to multiple scenarios, not just the shower in, shower out that we typically think of when somebody says biosecurity.
Speaker 1:If you see an introduction of swine respiratory disease in a farm, what are the typical signs, the symptoms you look for?
Speaker 2:So recent outbreaks and the clinical signs that we'll see, it kind of depends on the pathogen. But if we think of the major players when it comes to swine respiratory disease, you know we're looking at PRRS or influenza and when those two pathogens might enter a farm you might see obviously the more reproductive signs at first and then you'll see more of the respiratory challenges in the piglets. If it is influenza, you might actually see overall coughing, true coughing, but sometimes it's just a subtle off feed that could be showing the clinical signs of a new introduction of a respiratory pathogen. So anywhere from an increase in abortions, increase in stillborns, obviously we're talking about respiratory pathogens, but the clinical signs on the farm are going to be multisystemic in how they present.
Speaker 1:So then, what sort of an impact on the farm's production have you experienced with recent outbreaks?
Speaker 2:impact on the farm's production have you experienced with recent outbreaks? So recent outbreaks on farms will vary in aggressiveness and how that particular pathogen really affects the farm, but you can have short-term losses as high as 50% pre-wean mortality and even just a lingering challenge that can influence the farm's overall throughput greatly as high as 20% annually over time with these types of outbreaks.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about respiratory pathogens, what sort of interventions might you use to manage the health of the farm?
Speaker 2:Yeah, at first, when we start to see the clinical signs, we're probably going to reach for some ancillary treatments that might help us with the off-feed events typically created by a fever.
Speaker 2:So we might be using NSAIDs, there might be probiotics or other products that are trying to boost the immune system and help to protect that individual sow, and then broad spectrum antimicrobials might be used not only to protect that sow herself but that might have a good opportunity to reduce her shedding of other bacterial agents that can protect the litter, or even products that might have a good volume of distribution and have a high likelihood of even ending up in the milk and getting to that piglet. So you know, those type of antimicrobial selections are going to be made based on how it's going to perform in the animal and what we should expect for a response. One of the important aspects of antimicrobial selection is going to be that volume of distribution in a drug that's got a high likelihood of preventing a broad spectrum of shedding in bacterial pathogens and a likelihood of maybe even getting into the milk and getting those piglets. So Avalosin has been a product that I have used in those situations where we want broad spectrum antimicrobial control for swine respiratory disease.
Speaker 1:What other applications have you seen successful, especially in the growing pig phase?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the growing pig phase with some swine respiratory challenges, really been happy with again the broad spectrum control, whether that is a group of coughing pigs with a history of strep challenges or mycoplasma, high rhinus challenges, glacerella, parasuus, so lots of different respiratory bacterial pathogens, but also in conjunction with a viral challenge. Just knowing that we're going to be able to control those secondaries had a lot of success with putting Avilacin in those situations to control the overall disease progression.
Speaker 1:What final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with here today when it comes to, you know, respiratory challenges or pig management, anything along those lines?
Speaker 2:Yeah, another component beyond the biosecurity, of preventing these diseases from being introduced into the farm and respiratory disease. Especially this time of year in the colder temperatures where we get into a lot of minimum ventilation type settings, it's always important to never overlook your ventilation and making sure that our antimicrobial selection is judicious in that it's going to have an effectiveness on the target pathogen and have the ability to get to the site of the infection. So when we're looking for broad spectrum and high volume of distribution, I've really been happy with what Abelson has to offer from the ability of what that antimicrobial can do in the animal.
Speaker 1:Our thanks to Dr Luke Straley of Nebraska Vet Services for joining us here today. This episode is brought to you by Farmgate Animal Health, a growing business that puts livestock first. Farmgate provides a proven portfolio of technically supported, high-quality products that are the foundation of custom herd health protocols. By offering multiple options for active ingredients, concentrations and administration route, farmgate provides you with choices to fit your needs, backed by a team with technical expertise to get the results you want. I'm Sarah Muirhead and you've been listening to Feedstuffs In Focus. If you would like to hear more conversations about some of the big issues affecting the livestock, poultry grain and animal feed industries, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast channel. Until next time, have a great day and thank you for listening.