Page 4 of articles about E. coli

Achieving good levels of colostral immunity by vaccinating sows is the first step to prevent scours; subsequently, active pre or post-weaning immunization must be added to prevent post-weaning diarrhoea.

Oedema disease prevention has traditionally been accomplished through the administration of antibiotics or manipulation of gut microbiota through diet. However, in recent years, many vaccines have been developed to prevent clinical manifestation of the disease.

Diarrhoea is their most typical clinical manifestation, and the earlier the onset, the more harmful it is. Newborn piglets can present with another clinical picture, with signs of sepsis (shock, depression, death, polyarthritis), which is associated with an extraintestinal E. coli.

The article provides an alternative to the current vaccination programs that could be the solution for farms with early onset oedema disease. However, this alternative —consisting of vaccinating the dams at the end of gestation to achieve post-weaning piglets immunization—, also raises questions...

Genetic selection provides a powerful tool to improve and maintain gut health in industrial pig production, and may in the future become a more sustainable alternative to the currently massive need for antibiotics.

Single animal treatment or batch medication? in any case, the treatment and choice of medication should be done based on resistance testing.

Enric Marco sums up the essential points to control post-weaning diarrhoea in our farm.

The immunomodulatory effect —particularly anti-inflammatory— of phytogenic products added to the diet seems to play a crucial role in addressing intestinal clinical pictures in pigs.

OD will normally appear after 1 or 2 weeks post-weaning and most likely associated to the presence of other risk factors.

In practice, and to have active-acquired antibodies ready at weaning, piglets should be immunised 10 days to 2 weeks before weaning.