Technical UPDATE | Effects of Tonisity Px™ on Pigs Reared in PRRS-Positive Facilities

Key Takeaways

>Tonisity Px significantly reduced both pre-weaning and 6-week nursery mortality by 60% or more compared to controls on farms with background PRRS infection.

>Tonisity Px generated an overall net benefit of $21,605, providing more than a 7-fold return on investment.

Swine veterinarians and producers are well aware that porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) poses a major threat to profitable pork production. Even with vaccination, disease breaks can occur that severely disrupt herd health and performance, or background infection can linger and pose a long-term concern. Tonisity Px is an innovative new technology that can help support optimal nutrition and health under such conditions and thereby moderate disease impacts. Tonisity Px is the first isotonic protein drink for pigs, representing a novel, cost-effective breakthrough technology that can dramatically elevate gut function and help boost herd health and productivity.

A research study investigated the effects of Tonisity Px supplementation on the survival of nursing piglets and post-weaning nursery pigs reared on farms with a background PRRS infection.

Experiment Design

The study involved 876 sows at a 14,000-sow commercial farrowing farm that was recovering from a serious PRRS outbreak (southern US location). Sows were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatment groups: Tonisity Px (n=480) or untreated control (n=396). Treatments were administered to each sow’s litter. Sows were farrowed in mid-June in 10 farrowing rooms. Piglets were weaned at approximately 17 days of age (range 14-20), and transported 16 to 18 hours to a commercial wean-finish facility in Iowa. Litters born to sows in their respective treatment groups received the following supplementation programs:

Tonisity Px (5036 liveborn pigs) —
– From 2 to 8 days of age, and for 2 days before weaning/transport, litters received 500 mL/day of Tonisity Px 3% solution in an open pan;
– At arrival, Tonisity Px 3% solution offered 3 times in first 4 hours at 4 L/50 pigs;
– Day 2 in nursery, same rate offered twice;
– Days 3-5 in nursery, only ‘fall-behind’ pigs offered Tonisity Px ‘gruel’, 20 kg/100 pigs;

Controls (4341 liveborn pigs) —
– No pre-weaning supplementation;
– Days 1-5 in nursery, pigs offered conventional electrolyte solution/gruel; fall-behind pigs offered gruel through day 15.

Tonisity Px gruel mixture was made using 15 L of 3% solution combined with 10 kg of feed, mixed into an ‘oatmeal’ consistency (weighing 25 kg).

Mortality data (collected daily pre-weaning and weekly post-weaning for 6 weeks) were statistically analyzed by appropriate standard methods using each pig as an experimental unit. Significance between treatments was declared at P ≤ 0.05.

Results

Pre-weaning mortality was greatly reduced for PRRS-exposed neonatal piglets supplemented with Tonisity Px for 7 days. Results summarized in Figure 1 indicate a significant 43.8% (P < 0.001) reduction in birth-to-weaning death losses for the Tonisity Px group compared to controls. Similarly, mortality during the actual on-test period (day 2-weaning) fell by 60.0% (P < 0.001) in the Tonisity Px group relative to controls. Six-week nursery (postweaning) mortality was also dramatically reduced by 62.6% (P < 0.001) for pigs with background PRRS infection and supplemented with Tonisity Px compared to pigs offered a conventional electrolyte supplement (Figure 1).

An economic analysis of these mortality reductions (Table 1) identified substantial financial benefits for using Tonisity Px in the PRRS-positive environment. For the weaned-pig producer, an extra 246 surviving pigs from this herd would represent $7134 in additional income. Likewise for the wean-finish operator, the Tonisity Px program yielded 401 extra surviving feeder pigs, representing a potential value of $18,045. The overall net benefit of the Tonisity Px program totaled $21,605, providing more than a 7-fold return on investment.

Conclusions

Pre-weaning and post-weaning supplementation of PRRS-exposed pigs with Tonisity Px clearly generated significant health and economic benefits. By helping reduce death losses, strategic Tonisity Px supplementation allowed producers to preserve productivity and profit potential under challenging conditions involving background PRRS infection.

References

1. Data on file, Study Report PRO-17-017, Tonisity Int. Ltd.

Tonisity Px is an isotonic nutritional supplement designed specifically for pigs. It is not a drug and it does not contain ingredients with drug-like properties. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Any observed differences in performance are due to the nutritional and hydration properties of Tonisity Px.

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