Articles - Pig health

Spain is, regarding pig census, the third country in the world in relation to pig production, behind China and the USA, and the fourth as pork producer because Germany fattens many piglets imported from The Netherlands and Denmark, and it also slaughters pigs from these and other countries.

Frequently, diseases become established on a farm because we culture them.

Enric Marco discusses a trial that concludes that the later the infection by M. hyorhinis occurs, the less serious it is. This information can be very useful to devise new control strategies in the era of antibiotic reduction.

Dr. Robert Morrison created the Swine Health Monitoring Project in 2011 and, after his tragic loss, in May 2017 the program was renamed.

The farmer contacted the veterinary surgeon concerning an increase of subcutaneous haemorrhages and bruises in the skin of several piglets in eight different litters. No deaths have yet been attributed to the problem.

Curiously, when I started to think about it, what I had considered as my number one mistake for most of my professional life became the fifth in importance.

What is a priority and what is not? It depends on the risks and the PRRSV status of the farm…

This article relates different microbiome profiles to greater or lesser severity in clinical signs, lesions and viral load in a co-infection with PRRS and PCV2 viruses, opening a window of opportunity.

In the primary humoral immune response, a single class IgM in monomeric form is initially secreted. The secondary response induced by a subsequent exposure to the same antigen will be mainly characterized by the production of IgG isotype but at higher titre and affinity.

Understanding water consumption and knowing the factors that can affect it, are important points in animal production and health.

List of practical measures applied in our daily work with good results. Those measures must be considered as a whole and never individually.

We propose to use the processing fluids, the liquid accumulated at the bottom of the pail when farmers collect tails and testicles during routine procedures as a sample.

By far, the most common and most obvious health hazard to producers and workers is accidental needle sticks. This article will focus on accidental needle sticks, what risks they present, and how to prevent them.

Specific humoral immunity is mediated by glycoproteins called antibodies or immunoglobulins.

Once the first symptoms of the infection emerged in pigs the facility was locked and the possibility to get in from outside was the only used.

We must come up with new strategies. The objective would be to prevent the animals going for slaughter from shedding Salmonella when they arrive at the abattoir, since they are the biggest responsible for carcass contamination.

The main mechanism of defense against intracellular infections, particularly virus.

In most fattening herds, the biggest risk for the finisher pigs to become infected with Salmonella is the within-farm contamination cycle of Salmonella. The biggest risk for introduction of Salmonella is buying infected piglets.

This article shows the different measures taken and the strategy followed to eradicate PEDv in a commercial farm: stabilization, creation of a disinfection bubble, monitoring and verification.

Community legislation on veterinary medicinal products and medicated feed is currently being reviewed with the aim of contributing to the reduction of antimicrobial resistance. The points of debate of these regulations are...

The role of each player in the innate immunity response: Type 1 Interferons and pro-inflammatory cytokines, complement, acute phase proteins, antimicrobial proteins, phagocytes, NK cells, γ/δ T lymphocytes,...

This article helps us to define the minimum biosecurity measures that should be internally established to prevent indirect PEDv transmission.

Liquid manure in deep anaerobic storage, contains sulfur (from amino acids in feed, manure or in water) which certain bacteria (anaerobes) use as a substitute for oxygen. They produce H₂S as an end product, which is toxic to living tissue, by stopping the energy supplying reactions in the tissue cells.

As pork producers, the only way forward is to rationalize and reduce the use of antibiotics which, in addition, could be a clear business opportunity.